Birth, Death, And Motherhood In Classical Greece

by Demand, Nancy

• ISBN13: 9780801880537
• ISBN10: 080188053X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-10-18
• Publisher: Johns Hopkins Univ Pr

Summary

Why did Greek society foster social conditions, especially early marriage with its attendant early childbearing, that were known to be dangerous for both mother and child? What were the actual causes of death among women described as dying of childbirth in the Hippocratic Epidemics? Why did families choose to portray labor scenes on tombstones when the Greek commemorative tradition otherwise avoided reference to suffering and illness? In Birth, Death, and Motherhood in Classical Greece, Nancy Demand offers the first comprehensive exploration of the social and cultural construction of childbirth in ancient Greece. Reading the ancient evidence in light of feminist theory, the Foucauldian notion of discursively constituted objects, medical anthropology, and anthropological studies of the modern Greek village, Demand discusses topics that include midwifery, abortion, attitudes of doctors toward women patients, and the treatment of women generally. For evidence, she relies primarily on the case histories in the Epidemics concerning women with complications in pregnancy, abortion, and childbirth. She also draws relevant details from cure records and dedications from healing sanctuaries, labor scenes depicted on tombstones, Aristophanic comedy, andPlatonic philosophy. "This book is an important contribution to the scholarship on the lives of ancient Greek women, ancient medicine, and the social construction of gender among the Athenians. Nancy Demand has constructed a richer, more nuanced, and very likely far more accurate picture of childbirth and its attendant dangers than we have had to date. Her collection of translations of the Hippocratic texts on childbirth and related issues will be of great value for future investigators."--Valerie French, American University.

Author Biography

Nancy Demand is professor emeritus of history at Indiana University.

Table of Contents

The lives of Greek women	p. 1
Hippocratic medicine and the Epidemics	p. 33
The treatment of female patients in the Epidemics	p. 48
The risks of childbirth	p. 71
Appeal to the Gods	p. 87
Acculturation to early childbearing	p. 102
The attitudes of the polis to childbirth : putting women into the grid	p. 121
Women and children : issues of control	p. 141
Cases in the Epidemics	p. 167
Cases involving pregnancy in the Epidemics	p. 168
Hippocratic index locorum	p. 273
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