The Koran, on the other hand, presents a legal system that is much closer
to the Jewish legal principles outlined above. As in Judaism, Islamic law de-
fined twenty-four months as the period of breast-feeding. A woman who was di-
vorced during this period and continued to nurse her child received full sup-
port from the infant’s father for the duration. In contrast to Jewish law, however,
a widow was not forbidden to remarry during this time. Moreover, Islamic leg-
islation was far more flexible with respect to the sending of an infant to a new
wet nurse, even after it was used to its own mother or wet nurse. Islamic law
differs substantially from Jewish and Christian legislation with respect to the
implications of breast-feeding. Islamic legislation developed a system of com-
plicated kinship connections defined through wet nursing, that were expressed
through marriage prohibitions. Children who were not biologically related but
who were the “milk children” of the same woman were not allowed to marry
each other. This complex system shows how one of the medical beliefs out-
lined above was interpreted by Muslim lawmakers. Since milk was understood
to be blood that had turned into milk, two children who nursed from the same
woman shared this milk-blood. Consequently, marriage between them was un-
derstood as a form of incest.^41
This short survey of the different laws related to nursing and of the rela-
tionships between the three monotheistic traditions exposes a complex struc-
ture embracing many possible conflicts. Mothers and fathers could differ on
the manner of feeding the child, whether the child nursed from a wet nurse
or the mother herself. Concern for the child’s welfare was sometimes at odds
with the mother’s own wishes to remarry. In addition, the employment of wet
nurses brought an additional element into the family. As we turn to the Mid-
dle Ages, I will seek to describe how medieval Jewish families functioned
within this framework.
Medieval Nursing PracticesMedieval Jewish society, which saw itself as adhering to ancient talmudic prin-
ciples, manifested continuity with the ancient world while reinterpreting some
of the ancient rulings. The two most important principles continued to be the
duration of breast-feeding and women’s obligation toward their husbands to
breast-feed their children. I will briefly examine the first principle and demon-
strate the second principle throughout the rest of the chapter.
As noted above, the ancient recommendation was that infants should be
nursed for a period of twenty-four months, and medieval legal decisions man-
ifest the attempt to enforce this rule. Nevertheless, contemporary sources con-
tain little information about the length of the period of breast-feeding in me-
dieval Jewish society. A variety of sources refer to women’s nursing of their
children for a period that ranged from two to four or five years. For example,