The Couvade (NefHxMotherhood)

Friday, May 22, 2009

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Exactly when man figured out that he had some involvement in this magic thing called “birth” is lost to the pages of history. By the time we get to written records (ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia), man had not only found his role, but he had completely co-opted it.

Man, in his great wisdom, knowing that the magical property of birth bestows the power, took it over. He decided that he alone was responsible for the child. He implanted his seed in the woman. She was simply a passive vessel to carry the child to maturity, conveniently freeing the man for, well, manly stuff.

The implications of this idea reverberated through society. Lineage became patriarchal, each man passing on his power and property to HIS children, rather than his sister’s children.

This, of course, required that he know which children were his children, unequivocally.

Thus ended the days when women were revered, and ushered in an era when women were watched, locked up, dominated, and brow beaten, mostly in the name of ensuring pure progeny.

Man still had to contend with the rather obvious fact that the children did also unequivocally belong to the mother, as they came out of her. To combat all the fanfare and excitement being directed at his wife during her confinement and labor, man invented a curious set of customs called the ‘couvade’ (coo-v-odd). The word comes from the French ‘couver,’ meaning ‘to hatch.’

All six non-ice covered continents have identifiable vestiges of the couvade. There are endless variations, but, in general, it goes like this:

When the woman goes into labor, the man takes to his bed.
In some cultures, he screams in agonal birth pains.
In others, he simply lies, wasted and pale, in bed for a month.

The mom, of course, jumps up from her childbirth bed and gets back to work, mostly taking care of her invalid husband and all the stuff he isn’t doing while he plays dead.

(Every married woman recognizes this syndrome. Our husbands can always manage to be sicker than we are. Clearly, these roots run deep.)

Theories abound about how couvade got started, but anthropologists largely chalk it up to sympathetic magic. In some cases, the idea was to draw the evil spirits away from the mother and child. In others, the magic worked more by protecting the child from the father’s follies. Regardless, the couvade served to draw attention away from the laboring mother, and toward the proud dad.

In the 1st century CE, Diodorus described labor in Corsica, “When a woman becomes a mother she pays no heed to the period of lying-in; but her husband, as though he were an invalid, takes to his bed and is waited upon during the lying-in period with as much attention as if he were really suffering bodily pain.”

Men, 1. Women, 0.

Marco Polo mentioned a forty-day couvade tradition among the Chinese in Turkestan. The Bantu in the Congo still practice an eight-day couvade.

Among tribes in Africa, the sympathetic magic of the ritual is more obvious. In the Bagesu, the husband must be very careful not to sustain an injury, lest his wife miscarry. In some tribes, wild food avoidances are required. In others, the father must be careful not to sweat, lest he steal power and potency from his incubating son.

These may be ancient, and largely non-extant, rituals, but that doesn’t stop modern men from exhibiting some of the same traits.

“Couvade” is still used as a medical term, for men who exhibit pregnancy traits while their wives are knocked up. This most commonly consists of weight gain, food cravings, nausea and/or back pains. Any man can convince himself of any of these at any point in time, and up to 90% of pregnant males do.

About 20% of pregnant dads experience more serious cases, involving such horrors as actual breast growth, a big belly and/or a 25-30 pound weight gain. There is actually a medical explanation for some of these phenomena, as studies show men do experience an increase in prolactin and estrogen levels, and a decrease in testosterone levels, in late pregnancy.

So there you have it–proof positive that even modern, civilized, cultured men are capable of acting (and feeling) like Neanderthals.

For the entire series, visit The Nefarious History of Motherhood.

And lest you think I’m making this stuff up, or for a little light (ahem) reading, check out the Bibliography.

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Tags: birth, couvade, delivery, fathers, history, hormones, humor, labor, magic, men, mother, motherhood, Parenting, Pregnancy

58 Comments

Liz

Friday, 22nd May 2009 at 12:44 pm

I am going to go and thank the heavens for my husband, who actually kicks into high-gear once I am pregnant, and higher when I’m laboring & delivering. With my first, a port-to-port episiotomy prevented my springing out of bed each time my baby needed me. Darin was changing diapers, taking care of the baby, then taking care of me when I was sobbing and ridiculous. With the next one, I was fine, but he still helped out a ton. I guess I have a rare one, and I will count this blessing.

There are so many reasons I am glad I didn’t live back then.

Liz’s last blog post..The Big Baby

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