Birth, Death, and Motherhood in Classical Greece

by Nancy Demand

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801880537
Publisher:	Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date:	11/22/2004
Series:	Ancient Society and History
Edition description:	Revised ed.
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.68(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Nancy Demand is professor emeritus of history at Indiana University.

What People are Saying About This

Valerie French

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

From the Publisher

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

Editorial Reviews

Demand's book brings welcome light to the problems that pregnant women are likely to have faced in Greek antiquity, and to the ways in which a male-dominated society sought to understand and manage women's necessary role in procreation.
—Classical Review

There is much here to provoke thought and not least because the author believes that male control of female reproductivity was woven inextricably into the institutions of the polis.
—Greece and Rome

A wide-ranging and general account, using written and visual evidence to focus, above all, on women as child-bearers, brought up and socialized through rituals to bear children for the family and the state, in patterns of early and frequent childbirth which were, contradictorily, damaging to their and their children's health or survival.
—Nick Fisher, Times Literary Supplement

From the Publisher

A wide-ranging and general account, using written and visual evidence to focus, above all, on women as child-bearers, brought up and socialized through rituals to bear children for the family and the state, in patterns of early and frequent childbirth which were, contradictorily, damaging to their and their children's health or survival.

Times Literary Supplement - Nick Fisher

There is much here to provoke thought and not least because the author believes that male control of female reproductivity was woven inextricably into the institutions of the polis.

Greece and Rome

Demand's book brings welcome light to the problems that pregnant women are likely to have faced in Greek antiquity, and to the ways in which a male-dominated society sought to understand and manage women's necessary role in procreation.

Classical Review

A wide-ranging and general account, using written and visual evidence to focus, above all, on women as child-bearers, brought up and socialized through rituals to bear children for the family and the state, in patterns of early and frequent childbirth which were, contradictorily, damaging to their and their children's health or survival.

— Nick Fisher

Times Literary Supplement

Bringing feminist theory and medical anthropology to bear on ancient evidence, Demand (history, Indiana U.) uses case histories in the Hippocratic Epidemics to explore the social and cultural construction of childbirth in ancient Greece. Other sources include cure records and dedications from healing sanctuaries. Includes 12 b&w plates of ancient sculptures depicting childbirth scenes. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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