Sacrificed for Honor: Italian Infant Abandonment and the Politics of Reproductive Control by David I. Kertzer (review)

294 BOOK REVIEWS In his "Afterword—a Reply to Some Colleagues" McCormack again challenges Thomas Bartlett and James Kelly and reiterates the importance of linguistic analysis in his own (presumably) more correct approach. He is hopeful that his methodology might lead to a closer analysis of "other familiar terms of debate in Irish history," such as "emancipation, union, repeal, home rule, parnellism, free state, etc." (p. 150). If McCormack or others undertake this endeavor, let us hope that their work will be less cluttered by the jargon which mars this work and more characterized by the clarity which is often the hallmark of those traditional narrative historians whose approach McCormack finds so inadequate. Thomas F. Moriarty College of Our Lady of the Elms Late Modern European Sacrificed for Honor Italian Infant Abandonment and the Politics ofReproductive Control. By David I. Kertzer. (Boston: Beacon Press. 1993. Pp. xvi, 272. 825.00.) Filled with dead babies, heartless parents, imprisoned women, syphilitic wetnurses, and caesarian operations on cadavers ofpossibly pregnant women so as to assure baptism of the unborn, this book is not for the squeamish, but it certainly deserves a wide audience because it focuses on a variety of important topics dealing with gender, religion, and power, and brings to light a story that is at once informative and frightening. Using extensive archival and bibliographic sources, the author melds the detail and color of a local case study in Bologna with an excellent comparative analysis ofinfant abandonment in the rest ofItaly. Although undaunted by temporal boundaries, he is primarily interested in the great numbers of infants abandoned during the nineteenth century. Part of this had to do with demographic expansion and economic disruption, especially in the countryside, but Kertzer feels that cultural factors were more at fault. Specifically, he contends that Counter-Reformation attempts to control sexuality led to an overwhelming stigmatization of illegitimacy , which in turn forced women to protect their honor—and their future chances of marriage—by keeping illicit pregnancies secret and turning the resulting babies over to public institutions. Charities for the protection of unwanted children from exposure or infanticide had already been established in die Middle Ages, and eventually were symbolized by "die wheel," a rotating box which allowed a woman (or her midwife) to transfer her baby into an institution without revealing her identity. Under the pressure of post-Tridentine concepts of honor, such wheels proliferated throughout Cadiolic Europe, and by the early nineteenth century the pre-unitary states of Italy had over BOOK REVIEWS 295 1200 of them, many of which acted as rural collecting points for babies that were sent on to foundling homes in die cities. Widi diese mechanisms in place, abandonment flourished, widi die rate fluctuating from between 1% to 6% of total birdis depending on region, although in certain cities by midcentury a staggering one-third ofall newborns were abandoned. Unfortunately, die desire to protect these infants and die economic wherewithal to do so were sadly at odds, and as a result most of the babies died witiiin dieir first year. Thus in 1819, of die 1,835 infants placed permanently in die Annunziata foundling home of Naples only 76 were alive after a year. Kertzer blames diis massacre of the innocents on "a society diat forced unwed mothers to abandon dieir babies" (p. 70). Such pressure came from a general onus attached to illegitimacy which forced women out of dieir homes until diey could secretly give birdi, dump the evidence of dieir "shame," and return to take up life anew. In some areas diey were allowed the anonymity of a maternity hospital but only in exchange for their services as wetnurses (a position fraught widi medical risks) for a set period of time to children in the attached foundling homes. In other areas, such as the Papal States, the pressures were more draconian. Using a network of midwives, priests, and police, papal autiiorities actively sought out unmarried pregnant women who remained in dieir communities, forcing them into prison until diey delivered their babies. Such a woman then owed a year's servitude trapped in die foundling home as a wetnurse, but only for children not her own. Worst of all...