- David Herlihy and Christiane Klapisch-Zuber (Tuscans and Their Families), have estimated
that approximately one fifth of all women there died in childbirth. - According to Jewish law, when one bakes bread, a small portion of the dough must be set
aside and burned. - Shabbat 2:6.
94.Midrash Tanh·uma, trans. into English with Introduction, Indices and Brief Notes (S. Buber
recension), by John T. Townsend (Hoboken, N.J., 1989), Gen. Parasha II: 31–32.
95.SHP, no. 1046.
96.MS Cambridge Add. 3127, fol. 32b: “To bless a woman: ‘He who blessed Sarah, Rebecca,
and Rachel and Hannah.’ And if he bless a woman about to give birth, he shall say: ‘Sarah, Rebecca,
Rachel and the greatest of righteous women; He who cured the King of Judah from his illness and
the prophetess Miriam from her leprosy; He who sweetened the Waters of Marah through Moses
and who cured the waters of Jericho through Elisha, may He bless and cure Marat Plonidaughter
of Ploniin recompense for what plonior plonithas vowed to give in charity. May the Omnipresent
send her His good word and heal her and grant life to her offspring.’ And if he blesses a woman, he
should say, ‘And bring her labor pangs to a successful end and lengthen her days and years and send
her a speedy recovery in body and flesh and in all of her limbs, along with all the sick of Israel, quickly
and in good time, amen.’ ” This manuscript is also from the late fourteenth century (1399). - The biblical text does, however, distinguish between pain and death. Eve’s curse only in-
cluded pain: Newman, From Virile Woman to WomanChrist, 82. - BT Sotah 12a.
- Ulrike Rublack, “Pregnancy, Childbirth and the Female Body in Early Modern Germany,”
Past and Present150(1996): 90–93. - See for example: Elisheva Baumgarten, “‘Thus Sayeth the Wise Midwives’: Midwives and
Midwifery in Thirteenth-Century Germany,” Zion(60)2000: 68; Weissler, Voices of the Matri-
archs: Listening to the Prayers of Early Modern Jewish Women(Boston, 1998), 66–75. - This Midrash appears in a number of printed and manuscript sources: Midrash Tanh·uma,
ed. Shlomo Buber (New York, 1946); P’kudei, 3:131–33; Oz·ar Midrashim, 1: 243–45 and in man-
uscript: MS Parma 563/40, fols. 136b–138a; Ms Oxford Bodl., Heb. d. 11 (2797/2), fols. 11a–14a;
MS Vatican ebr. 44/11, fols. 323a–24b; Darmstadt, 25/11, fols. 28d–29b.
102.Midrash Yez·irat haValad, 243–45. - I am intentionally using male pronouns in my translation, as the entire Midrash seems
completely divorced from women. - For an outline of Aristotelian views, see: Cadden, Meanings of Sex Difference, supra, n. 37.
- Lev. 12.
- BT Berakhot 60a.
- There was a belief that in exceptional, miraculous cases, the gender of the baby could be
changed even after forty or eighty days. In their discussions of the birth of Dinah, the daughter of
Jacob, some medieval commentators suggest that Dinah was actually supposed to have been a boy.
She was changed into a girl because, had she been a boy, she would have become Leah’s seventh
son. Consequently, Rachel would have been deprived of her allotted number of sons (as Jacob had
been allotted a total of twelve sons). Thus, Dinah was turned into a female after she had already
been created as a male. Sefer Tosafot haShalem, Gen. 30:21, no. 3 (as well as MS Vatican ebr. 123,
fol. 48b “and she bore a daughter.” - The idea appears in BT Niddah 31a, and many commentators repeat it. For example, Sefer
Tosafot haShalem, Gen. 29:16 no. 3; Rashi, Gen. 46:15, s.v. “these are the sons of Leah”; Moshav
Zekenim on the Torah, ed. Shlomo David Sasson (London, 1959), Lev. 12:2; SHP, no. 509. This
idea, originating in classical medical sources, was widely accepted in Christian society as well. See
Michel Salvat, “L’accouchement”; Claude Thomasset, “Quelques principes de l’embryologie
médiévale,” L’enfant au moyen âge. Littérature et civilisation9(1980): 107–21. - BT Shabbat 129a.
110.SHP, nos. 109, 264, 517, 565. Pious women would prepare hot water before the Sabbath
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