Gateway Chronicle 2021

35
remaining parochial in England until at least the
late-eighteenth century. Even where formalised
medical institutions existed, the caregiving role of
a woman persisted. For example, Broomhall notes
how, ‘women at all levels were involved in treatment
of the sick, and the maintenance of health, within
their family or household’, and this was not something
reserved for a certain section of society. It is
only due to being unrepresented in contemporary
source material that the voices of these women have
Hidden Voices
not been fully considered. Therefore, although the
rise of the man-midwife was certainly a threat to female
practitioners, they certainly did not undermine
the authority of the traditional midwife overnight;
caregiving within the domestic sphere remained the
responsibility of the wife and mother throughout
this period.
Furthermore, recent scholarship has stressed the
fact that any shift away from female midwives was
actually brought about by women themselves,
in response to changing fashions.
If this is the case, then it completely
undermines the argument that women
were the unwilling victims of this shift
towards man-midwives. Adrian Wilson,
for example, believes that ‘this change …
did not arise from any campaign on the
part of male practitioners to displace the
female midwife; … on the contrary, it arose
from new choices on the part of mothersto-be,
and it appears to have taken male
practitioners by surprise’. The reason for
this sudden transition seems to be largely
focused on the rise in civility after the
sixteenth century. With the breakdown
of traditional community relationships,
many women worked harder to distinguish
themselves from people lower down the
social scale. For women, a way of doing
this was through the employment of
the man-midwife in favour of the poorer
female midwife, whose negative reputation
among some of the educated classes
has already been outlined. This shift was
further encouraged with the introduction
of forceps by Peter Chamberlen in the seventeenth
century; although, they did not
become widely used until a century later.
These instruments became fashionable
among the elites, who saw the possession
of medical knowledge and instruments as
a distinguishing factor between themselves
and the poor. However, the role played by
fashion has, however, been questioned by
Sommers who states that, ‘while the fashionable
appeal of the man-midwife may
have played a part in women’s decision to
employ a male practitioner, women and
their families were unlikely to make such
an important a decision solely on this basis’.
Nevertheless, it remains the possibility
that the pregnant mother retained a certain