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COUVADE (literally a "brooding," from Fr. couver, to See also: custom so called in See also: Beam, prevalent among several peoples in different parts of the See also: world, requiring that the See also: father, at and sometimes before the See also: birth of his See also: child, shall retire to See also: bed and fast or abstain from certain kinds of See also: food, receiving the attentions generally shown to See also: women at their confinements
.
The existence of the custom in See also: ancient classical times is testified to by See also: Apollonius Rhodius, Diodorus (who refers to its existence among the Corsicans), and See also: Strabo (who noticed it among the See also: Spanish See also: Basques, by whom, as well as by the Gascons, it has been said to be still observed, though the most See also: recent researches entirely discredit this)
.
Travellers, from the See also: time of Marco Polo, who relates its observance in See also: Chinese See also: Turkestan, have found the custom to prevail in See also: China, See also: India, See also: Borneo, Siam, See also: Africa and the Americas
.
Even in See also: Europe it cannot be said to have entirely disappeared
.
In certain of the Baltic provinces of See also: Russia the See also: husband, on the lying-in of the wife, takes to his bed and groans in See also: mock See also: pain
.
One writer believes he found traces of
it in the little See also: island of Marken in the Zuyder Zee
.
Even in rural See also: England, notably in See also: East Anglia, a curiously obstinate belief survives (the prevalence of which in earlier times is proved by references to it in Elizabethan drama) that the pregnancy of the woman affects the See also: man, and the See also: young husband who complains of a toothache is assailed by pleasantries as to his wife's condition
.
In See also: Guiana the custom is.observed in its most typical See also: form
.
The woman See also: works to within a few See also: hours of the birth, but some days before her delivery the father leaves his occupations and abstains from certain kinds of animal food lest the child should suffer
.
Thus the flesh of the See also: agouti is forbidden, lest the child should be lean, and that of the capibara or See also: water-See also: cavy, for fear he should inherit through his father's gluttony that creature's projecting teeth
.
A few hours before delivery the woman goes alone, or with one or two women-See also: friends, into the See also: forest, where the baby is See also: born
.
She returns as soon as she can stand, to her See also: work, and the man then takes to his See also: hammock and becomes the invalid
.
He must do no work, must touch no weapons, is forbidden allSee also: meat and food, except at first a fermented liquor and after the twelfth See also: day a weak gruel of See also: cassava See also: meal
.
He must not even smoke, or See also: wash himself, but is waited on See also: hand and See also: foot by the women
.
So far is the See also: comedy carried that he whines and groans as if in actual pain
.
Six See also: weeks after the birth of the child he is taken in hand by his relatives, who lacerate his skin and rub him with a decoction of the See also: pepper-plant
.
A banquet is then held from which the patient is excluded, for he must not leave his bed till several days later; and for six months he must eat the flesh of neither See also: fish nor See also: bird
.
Almost identical ceremonies have been noticed among the natives of California and New Mexico; while in See also: Greenland and See also: Kamchatka the husband may not work for some time before and after his wife's confinement
.
Among the Larkas of See also: Bengal a See also: period of See also: isolation and uncleanness, synchronous with that compulsory on the woman, is imperative for the man, on the conclusion of which the child's parentage is publicly proclaimed
.
No certain explanation can be offered for the custom
.
The most reasonable view is that adopted by E
.
B
.
See also: Tylor, who traces in it the transition from the earlier matriarchal to the later patriarchal See also: system of tribe-organization
.
Among See also: primitive tribes, and probably in all ages, the former See also: order of society, in which descent and See also: inheritance are reckoned through the See also: mother alone, as being the earliest form of See also: family See also: life, is and was very See also: common, if not universal
.
The acknowledgment of a relation-See also: ship between father and son is characteristic of the progress of society towards a true family life
.
It may well be that the Couvade arose in the father's See also: desire to emphasize the bond of See also: blood between himself and his child
.
It is a fact that in some countries the father has to See also: purchase the child from its mother; and in the See also: Roman ceremony of the husband raising the baby from the floor we may trace the savage idea that the male See also: parent must formally proclaim his adoption of and responsibility for the offspring
.
Max See also: Miller., in his Chips from a See also: German Workshop, endeavoured to find an explanation in primitive "henpecking," asserting that the unfortunate husband was tyrannized over by " his See also: female relatives and afterwards frightened into superstition," —that, in fact, the whole fabric of ceremony is reared on nothing but masculine See also: hysteria; but this theory can scarcely be taken seriously
.
The missionary, See also: Joseph See also: Francois Lafitau, suspected a psychological reason, assuming the custom to be a dim recollection of See also: original sin, the isolation and fast types of repentance
.
The explanation of the See also: American See also: Indians is that if the father engaged in any hard or hazardous work, e.g. hunting, or was careless in his See also: diet, the child would suffer and inherit the See also: physical faults and peculiarities of the animals eaten
.
This belief that a See also: person becomes possessed of the nature and form of the animal he eats is widespread, being as prevalent in the Old World as in the See also: Nei, but it is insufficient to account for the minute ceremonial details of La Couvade as practised in many lands
.
It is far more likely that so universal a practice has no trivial beginnings, but is to be considered as a mile-See also: stone marking a
See also: great transitional epoch in human progress
.
AIITEORITIlLs.--E
.
B
.
Tylor's Early See also: History of Man (1865; 2nded. p
.
301); F
.
Max See also: Muller, Chips from a German Workshop (1868-1875), ii
.
281;
See also: Lord Avebury, Origin of Civilisation (19o0) ; Brett's See also: Indian Tribes of Guiana; Johann Baptist von Spix and Karl F
.
P. von Martins, Travels in See also: Brazil (1823-1831), ii
.
281;
F
.
Lafitau, Mteurs See also: des sauvages americains (1st ed., 1724) ; W
.
Z
.
See also: Ripley, Races of Europe (1900); A
.
H
.
See also: Keane's See also: Ethnology (1896), p
.
368 and footnote; A
.
See also: Giraud-Teulon, See also: Les Origines du mariage et de la famille (See also: Paris, 1884)
.
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