Maternal Measures: Figuring Caregiving in the Early Modern Period by Naomi J. Miller, Naomi Yavneh

Abstract

Reviews 143 laxly confusions, of sex and gender in the early modern period. What may seem at first glance to be anomalous probably is not. The Bedtrick's ambition, comparativist orientation, and its play fulness prevent it from argumentatively engaging questions "cul tural studies* might pose: what is at work to approve this copu lating pair and condemn another? what allows the fictional indi vidual to evade social demands? what might the conjugal/forni cating pair displace? what might the "tricked" partner represent? In Splitting theDifference, Doniger concludes "gender trumps cul ture." By mounting evidence that individuals are ignorant of the identity (frequently overtly split or fragmented) of those with whom they are most physically intimate, Doniger implies in The Bedtrick that indeed "culture is the shadow of gender." However, the surrogates, so crucial to the bedtrick, are as likely to repre sent a beleaguered figure of nostalgia, the status quo, or a restored order, as an object or subject of sexual desire. The Bedtrick engenders a good many more questions than it answers, and therein may lie its greatest value. Naomi J. Miller and Naomi Yavneh. Maternal Measures: Figuring Caregiving in the Early Modern Period. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2000. 390 pp. $69.95. Reviewed by Donna C. Woodford Maternal Measures: Figuring Caregiving in the Early Modern Period, edited by Naomi Miller and Naomi Yavneh, is the firstbook in the new Women and Gender in the Early Modern World series fromAshgate. The book is an interdisciplinary collection of essays on mothers and other caregiving figures in the early modern peri od. Spanning the disciplines of literature, music, art history, and social history, and covering territories throughout Europe and the Americas, the essays explore the roles of caregivers in the early modern world and the ways inwhich those roles were interpreted and used both by the caregivers themselves and by the cultures inwhich they lived. In her introductory essay, Miller establishes the book's aim of exploring the "spectrum, and spectacle, ofmaternity in particular and of female caregivers at large in the early modern period" (1). The concepts of spectrum and spectacle prove central to the vol ume since the essays not only examine a variety of caregivers, including "mothers and stepmothers, midwives and wet nurses, wise women and witches, saints and Amazons, murderers and 144 The Journal for Early Modern Cultured Studies nurturers," but also explore the many ways inwhich those care giving roles were turned into spectacles that sometimes empow ered or glorified the caregiver and sometimes limited or condemned her (1). Early modern women, Miller observes, were often identi fied by their caregiving responsibilities both inside and outside the family, and while roles such as mother, midwife, wet nurse, and educator could potentially empower women by giving them author ity in the home and in the community, these same roles could be used to define and limit the condition of female caregivers or to condemn women who did not live up to a given ideal. The essays in this volume are divided into five categories: conception and lactation; nurture and instruction; domestic pro duction; social authority; and mortality. Part One includes four essays on the subjects of conception and lactation, and while these essays explore different disciplines in different countries, they together show how the breast and the womb could alternately be constructed as sources of life and feminine creativity and as dan gerous threats to men and a patriarchal society. In her essay, Judith Rose suggests that both the poet, Gaspara Stampa, and the painter, Sofinisba Anguissola, ally themselves with images of the Virgin Mary and thus with a positive, acceptable form of creativity for female artists. Likewise, Yavneh examines Anguissola's realis tically depicted nursing Madonna and suggests that the artist was drawing parallels between the influence ofmaternal milk and the influence of a female artist. In contrast, Caroline Bicks's essay is a fascinating examination of early modern fears about the power of midwives both to spread stories about the paternity of a child and to emasculate male children by tying the umbilical cord too short, which was thought to affect both the length of the child's genitals and his ability to speak freely...