Difference between revisions of "Week 7 Questions/Comments"
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Another common theme I found throughout Ballard's diary was disease and death. Not only did three of her own children die in 1769, but her diary is dotted with funerals and deaths. There were seven or eight deaths in the excerpt from the book alone. --Alex K. | Another common theme I found throughout Ballard's diary was disease and death. Not only did three of her own children die in 1769, but her diary is dotted with funerals and deaths. There were seven or eight deaths in the excerpt from the book alone. --Alex K. | ||
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| + | Since Martha Ballard does make mention of her Puritan faith I was wondering what the Church’s view of midwives would be? Would they fall along the lines that birth is a woman’s “curse” and therefore men should have nothing to do with it? Would they uplift the idea of reproduction and life in the form of childbirth? What would be a secular view? Did urban or rural women prefer one practice over the other? Are there any records of how many women relied on their immediate kin for deliveries and not midwives (or doctors later on)? Some of this information was touched upon with last week’s readings, but I wanted to throw these questions out there and see if the answers are similar or different based upon Ballard’s diary and experiences. –Mary Beth D. | ||
