cial, and, insofar as they are interrelated, I will identify the connections. These
artificial distinctions do, however, facilitate a more balanced gender analysis of
birth. Most intellectual history approaches to procreation have been circum-
scribed by the textual material, which reflects the thoughts of the men who wrote
them, whereas analyses of the social functions of birth have devoted far more at-
tention to women.^3 In the context of medieval Ashkenazic Jewry, neither of these
analyses has been undertaken in previous research, and as such, this chapter will
provide analyses of attitudes toward procreation and of the social history of birth.
We should note at the outset that the study of birth, as scholars, and espe-
cially feminist scholars have shown, is complex. While it is relatively easy to as-
certain what medieval people thought about God’s role or the role of men in
procreation, revealing the roles of women, beyond the bare fact that they bore
children, is a difficult task. Although birth was women’s business and only
women attended births, it is very difficult for scholars to gain access to the
birthing chamber and other arenas in which women may be found. Further-
more, the male expectations and social orders, ever present outside the birthing
chamber, undoubtedly filtered into that female space as well. Thus, the study
of birth is actually the study of “the intercourse of birth with patriarchy.”^4
Procreation and Its Significances
Medieval Understandings of the “Nature” of WomenFeminist scholarship, since its beginnings, has devoted extensive energy in the
attempt to define and identify female spheres and characteristics. While fem-
inist categories have been enthusiastically adopted by some scholars, others
have avoided them as overly essentialist. All agree, however, on the significance
of women’s ability to give birth. As the anthropologist Helen Callaway re-
marked, birth is “the most essentially female function of all.” Gender method-
ologies have attempted to shift the weight from the biological function of giv-
ing birth to the role of culture in defining the birth process. This is the course
we will follow.^5
Medieval society assumed that giving birth and being a mother was an in-
herent feature of female identity. Exactly how this inherency was understood,
is, however a matter of great interest. Women in medieval Jewish society, as in
all premodern patriarchal societies, bore secondary status. They were expected
to serve their husbands in many ways; giving birth to children, especially male
children, was just one of them. In addition, in medieval times women were ed-
ucated to be mothers. In medieval Jewish society, as in its Christian counter-
part, motherhood was one of the central aims of female education.^6 Although
the expectations fostered by such education became relevant when the girls
reached sexual maturity, the education of girls as future mothers began from a
very young age.