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Control and Limitation of Midwives in Modern France: The Example of Marseille Phyllis Stock-Morton Of the numerous roles played by women in European societies of the past, that of midwife was the one most fraught with ambivalence. ChUdbearing was the sacred role of women; yet, it was associated in the popular mind with the dark forces of sex and blood. The potential for evil was always present in abortion and infantidde. The midwife not only aided women in bearing children but in arriving at dedsions not to bear or not to keep a child. Her activities, which included prescribing medicines for iUs other than childbirth, could also provide her with a modicum of financial independence; by early modern times this independence placed her in a unique position as a woman. Therefore, although she was a necessary and even important figure, the midwife was viewed as a potentially disruptive force whose activities took place outside the system of male dominance. Witch hunts in some areas often began with the local midwife who was accused of causing sterility, aiding abortion, and kilUng newborn babies. Midwives were popularly believed to provide newborns for the Black Mass. Already in the fifteenth century the magistrates of French towns began demanding that midwives take oaths against sorcery.1 This article deals with the rationalization of the practice of midwifery in nineteenth-century France, using MarseiUe as an example. The secondlargest dty in France and the fifth-largest port in the world at that time, MarseUle is far enough from Paris to provide a more typical view of the process than may be seen from the capital. The picture that emerges wül be idiosyncratic in the sense that MarseiUe, a Mediterranean port, was often less responsive than other cities to both the culture and the centralizing decrees from Paris, particularly since it had suffered greatly from them during the Revolution. Nevertheless, it was typical in its attitudes toward independent women. The midwives of Marseille were to find themselves under more government control at the end of the nineteenth century than ever before. Under the Napoleonic Empire the government in Paris determined the regulations for midwifery, which were the same for all French départements (administrative distrids) and which had developed out of an historical experience going back to the early modern period. Early in the © 1996 Journal of Women's History, Vol. 8 No. ι (Spring) 1996 Phyllis Stock-Morton 61 sixteenth century munidpaUties began to license midwives.2 Almost aU belonged to the urban artisan class; but, except in larger towns like Paris, most could not Uve on their earnings. There was no consistency in the fees, even within regions; they ranged from sous to Uvres for each deUvery.3 After the Coundl of Trent consolidated the CathoUc Reformation in the mid-sixteenth century, midwives had to take an oath before the local bishop so that they could baptize infants likely to die before reaching the church. These oaths usually included swearing not to use sorcery, not to take advantage of a woman in labor whom one did not Uke, not to reveal secrets of the household, not to deliver an unmarried woman without notifying the authorities, and not to help a woman to abort a fetus.4 There were also efforts to prevent Protestant women from practicing midwifery. Both Church and state were interested in controlling midwives and, through them, the process of birth. Assuming that unwed mothers would try to kiU their infants, Henry II decreed in 1556 that aU single pregnant women make a pubUc declaration of their condition or risk execution should the chUd be found dead unbaptised after birth.5 (This dedaration was stiU required in France before 1830.) Meanwhile, the midwife was charged with coUecting information on the name of the father, whüe the woman was in labor. This requirement reversed the oath that midwives had previously taken—that they would never reveal the secrets of the families they served.6 For centuries the preparation for midwifery had been a kind of apprenticeship, passed on most often in families. Efforts to improve midwifery were partly a result of the sdentific revolution; however, there was ambivalence about giving scientific...

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