the author of Mah·zor Vitrydiscusses the Mishna, “at the age of five one is ripe
for Bible” (Avot 5:21), and explains why it is appropriate to wait until age five
to start schooling. He explains that a child is like a tree.^42 According to Jewish
Law, the fruits of a tree growing in Israel may not be eaten during the first three
years of the tree’s growth. The fruit of a tree of this sort is known as orlah(lit.,
uncircumcised). He explains:
And so a child should be weaned in his third year, after two years have passed by,
as it is the way of infants to nurse twenty-four months.... And in the fourth year
he will place a book before him or teach him a little by heart like “Moses com-
manded the Torah to us” (Deut. 33:4), so that he will grow accustomed to it. And
in the fifth year, he will teach him Bible.^43In a different source, one of the Tosafists comments that a healthy child nurses
for four years and an unhealthy child for five years.^44 This idea is repeated in
a fourteenth-century treatise from Christian Spain as well.^45 Other sources
suggest that some women did not breast-feed their children even for the dura-
tion of the required two-year period. R. Judah b. Nathan (Riban, twelfth cen-
tury) mentions the Talmudic passage in Tractate Yevamot, which discusses sit-
uations in which a nursing mother discovers she is pregnant during the
twenty-four-month nursing period. It is clear from his discussion that, in such
a case, the woman had weaned her child before the age of two.^46 In a discus-
sion of women who were widowed or divorced and wished to stop nursing, eigh-
teen months is mentioned as an acceptable age.^47
It seems that the age of formal education is a terminus ad quem for the du-
ration of nursing. It is likely that most children nursed until age two (and at
times even less); this also accords with the use of nursing as a method of birth
control in premodern times. While breast-feeding was not considered a reli-
able form of birth control (as we see from the permission given to nursing
mothers to use birth control), it often delayed additional pregnancies. Hence,
women who wanted to give birth to additional children as quickly as possible
often gave their children to wet nurses.^48
A comparison of the material that emerges from the Jewish sources with
what we know of Christian society reveals similar recommendations and prac-
tices. Among Christians, two years was also the prescribed period of breast-
feeding, but there is little information as to how closely this recommendation
was followed. A study of wet-nurse contracts, mainly from fifteenth-century
Italy, has revealed that officially wet nurses were hired for a period of thirty
months; in practice, however, most infants were weaned at the age of eighteen
months; following this period, the wet nurse remained with the infant as a
nanny.^49 Evidence from Christian society demonstrates that many infants ex-
perienced frequent change of wet nurses. The frequent death of infants fol-
lowing such changes is evidence that this practice posed a serious threat to in-
fants’ welfare.^50