Breast-feeding in medieval Islamic thought: a preliminary study of legal and medical writings.

ON A HISTORY OF BREAST-FEEDING IN THE CONTEXT OF MUSLIM SOCIETIES

When we imagine how premodern societies conceived of motherhood and infancy, no behavior looks more characteristic of mother-child relationships than breast-feeding, that life-giving act humans share with all other mammals. When mothers failed or refused to breast-feed their own infants, they were often regarded as acting contrary to nature. The author of the Book of Lamentations contrasts the cruelty of the women of Jerusalem ("the daughter of my people") with the good nature of the jackals that "give the breast and suckle their young."(1) And in the Qur'an, mothers refusing to breast-feed their own infants illustrate the catastrophic events that will occur throughout the universe on the Day of Judgment: "On the day when ye see it, every suckling female will forget what she has suckled, and every pregnant female will cast her burden."(2)

Crucial for the survival and development of newborn infants, human breast-feeding furthermore is a fundamental means of socialization, which makes it a legitimate object for historical research. Not surprisingly, the ways its physical and psychological functions have been conceptualized differ from one society to another or even from one social group to another.

A reconstruction of the nature and prevalence of methods of infant feeding in the past helps to shed light on vital aspects of family life and the lives of women and children: women's status within the family and their relationships with their husbands and infants, the physical treatment children received, the psychological relationships that evolved between children and their parents and nurses, and so on.

When looking at historical notions and practices of breast-feeding, one may well bear in mind the importance modern psychology accords to the bond that is being formed, during the breast-feeding period, between a baby and its mother (or the breast), which some see as perhaps the most powerful human relationship.(3) For Erik Erikson, the mouth and the nipple are "the mere centers of a general aura of warmth and mutuality which are enjoyed and responded to with relaxation not only by these focal organs, but by both total organisms." And "The mutuality of relaxation thus developed is of prime importance for the first experience of friendly otherness."(4) If indeed "there are as many types of unconscious as there are ... types of society,"(5) then the bond between nurse and nursling differs from one society to another in its psychological significance; but as the first stage in the process of socialization, it seems to be universally fundamental.

Anthropology, in the way it has revealed some of the cultural meanings of breastfeeding in the context of contemporary societies, supplies the historian with a set of insights as well as questions to be directed toward the early texts at his or her disposal. Particularly important for historical research are anthropological observations concerning "power structures" that we may find expressed in breast-feeding customs. For instance, in many societies, so as to control mother-child relationships, men (fathers, wet nurses' husbands) rather than women (mothers, wet nurses) determine the quality and quantity of the food to be consumed by women and children and set the limits to the lactation period, sometimes discriminating against female nurslings. Men also decide whether the mother herself will breast-feed her baby or this will be done by another woman, a wet nurse. In the latter case, it is the father, not the mother, who is responsible for selecting the wet nurse, which he does by paying attention to a number of physical and moral-mental characteristics and following certain economic and social criteria.(6) All this is to be seen as forming part of "teaching both women and children their place in the patriarchal system of kinship and property."(7) At the same time, we find instances in which women manage to mold practices of breast-feeding that do not respond to the norms consolidated by men.(8)

As we can learn from a variety of sources - the Bible, the Code of Hammurabi, Egyptian papyri, Greek and Roman literature, and so on - the wet nurse was a familiar figure in ancient societies, and mercenary nursing was at times well organized.(9)

In medieval Europe, mercenary wet nursing was common primarily among noble and wealthy families, and then later - in the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance - spread to lower groups of society, particularly in Italy.(10) The practice was encouraged by various, sometimes contrasting, motivations, depending on the social group and the personal, economic, and social circumstances. Among rich and noble women, it was often influenced by health reasons and a desire to maintain their figure or to shorten intervals between pregnancies; among poorer women, it was often influenced by the necessity to return to work as soon as possible after giving birth.

Historical documents that have come to light in recent years show that research, in the European context, no longer has to be limited to dealing only with theoretical attitudes toward infant feeding but can be extended to include daily practices. Contracts made up between a child's father and a nurse's husband found in France and Italy, where "wet nursing was a highly organized industry controlled by the state as early as the thirteenth century," are one example.(11) Then there are the papal and royal decrees issued in several countries in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries that prohibited the nursing of Jews by Christian women;(12) family records of Tuscans, particularly Florentine merchants; and a few autobiographies.(13) By far the richest and most fruitful source is, of course, the archives of foundling hospitals. For instance, the archive of the Spedali Santa Maria degli Innocenti in Florence, founded in 1419 as a refuge for foundlings and needy infants,(14) contains detailed information on all infants ever admitted to the hospital, including data on the way they were fed (generally through wet nursing).(15)

With an almost total lack of archival documentation, the historian of the family in premodern Muslim societies remains far more limited to sources of a normative-idealistic character, all written and compiled by men of upper-urban social strata.(16) For instance, foundling hospitals and similar institutions were unknown in the lands of Islam because orphans and foundlings were generally given immediate shelter within their extended families or families of other members of their parents' congregation.(17) Except for fatawa (responsa) - some of which are highly illuminating for our purpose - and sijjilat (records of shar' i courts), which are also expected to bear fruit for the study of History of Childhood (albeit from the fifteenth century onward only), legal writings generally deal with questions concerning breast-feeding on a more theoretical level. Of course, the discussions involved did not take place in a vacuum, but the question of how they related to daily life is a complex one. The same is true for medical theories. Even where it is clear that they were popular, to what extent these were actually applied and how they were exactly implemented is difficult to unravel. However, describing the conceptions and ideas about breast-feeding as they can be distilled from many Islamic writings - abstract and static as these ideas may sometimes look - and analyzing their roots and possible social impact are necessary steps toward a deeper understanding of the reality of children's lives and parent-child relationships, as well as of the status and roles of women in premodern Muslim families. In this way, they can moreover help supply some answers to questions concerning family structure and demographic changes.

ARABIC-ISLAMIC SOURCES FOR NORMS OF BREAST-FEEDING

Besides a few Qur'anic verses that form the basis for later discussions,(18) questions connected with breast-feeding are raised mainly in hadith (sayings about or attributed to the Prophet Muhammad), including compilations of the prophet's biography (sira) and Qur' an exegesis, as well as in legal and medical writings.

Among the compilers of the six canonical collections of hadith dating from the ninth century AD, only two, Muslim b. Hajjaj (d. 875 AD) and Abu 'Isa al-Tirmidhi (d. 883-84, 888-89 or 892-83 AD), dedicated a separate chapter (kitab) - and a short one at that - to breast-feeding (rada'). The same is true of one earlier collection, al-Muwatta' by Malik b. Anas (d. 795 AD). In all other collections, there are only scattered references to breast-feeding, often appearing within the context of marriage (nikah). In other words, breast-feeding …