Abstract
One of the arguments justifying the black legend of childhood is that maternal love was virtually non-existent until the nineteenth century. Historians based this conclusion on the hiring of wet-nurses to suckle infants. Since the Middle Ages, the wet-nurse had undeniably been a widespread phenomenon, especially in Italy, France and England. Among the elite but also among artisans in the cities, it was not unusual for newborns to be placed with a wet-nurse. These women were often farmers’ wives, who kept the children for one or two years.1
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Notes
Valerie Fildes, Wet Nursing. A History from Antiquity to the Present (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988);
Sara F. Matthews Grieco, ‘Breastfeeding, Wet Nursing and Infant Mortality in Europe (1400–1800)’, in Historical Perspectives on Breastfeeding. Two Essays by Sara E Matthews Grieco and Carlo A. Corsini (Florence: UNICEF International Child Development Centre, 1991) pp. 15–63.
Olwen Hufton, The Prospect before Her. A History of Women in Western Europe (London: HarperCollins, 1995).
Cf. Stephen Wilson, ‘The Myth of Motherhood a Myth: the Historical View of European Child-Rearing’, Social History 9 (1984) pp. 181–98.
Tessa van den Esschert, ‘Minnen onbemind? De positie van minnen in Nederland van 1600 tot 1900’, Skript 13 (1991) pp. 97–105. Els Kloek, Giesela van Oostveen and Nicole Teeuwen (eds), Volkscultuur 8 (1991) nr3.
Leendert F. Groenendijk, ‘Pietisten en borstvoeding’, Pedagogisch Tijdschrift/Forum voor Opvoedkunde 1 (1976) pp. 583–90.
Van Beverwijck, Wercken, p. 211. Cf. A.A. Helvetius, Verhandeling van som-mige zaken, die tot de opvoeding der eerst- en jonggeborene kinderen, zoo binnen als buiten de kraamkamers, opzigt hebben, gedaan in de 45e maan-delijksche genees- en heelkundige bijeenkomst binnen Middelburg, in Zeeland, op Vrijdag den 4 Julij 1738 (Middelburg: s.n., 1738?), cited in H. van Dijk and D.J. Roorda, Het patriciaat in Zierikzee tijdens de Republiek (Archief. Mededelingen van het Koninklijk Zeeuwsch Genootschap der Wetenschappen) (Middelburg, 1980) p. 27.
Marijke Barend-van Haeften, Oost-Indië gespiegeld. Nicolaas de Graaff, een schrijvend chrurgijn in dienst van de VOC (Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 1992) pp. 144–5.
H.F.K. van Nierop, Van ridders tot regenten. De Hollandse adel in de zestiende en de eerste helft van de zeventiende eeuw (s.l.: De Bataafsche Leeuw, 1984) pp. 73–4.
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© 2000 Uitgeverij Wereldbibliotheek BV
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Dekker, R. (2000). Mothers and Wet-nurses. In: Childhood, Memory and Autobiography in Holland. Early Modern History: Society and Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-62377-8_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-62377-8_11
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