The Prospect Before Her: A History of Women in Western Europe, 1500-1800.

By Olwen Hufton (London: Harper Collins, 1995. ix plus 613pp. index, hardback/$ 35.00).

In this impressive study, Olwen Hufton takes on the history of women in Western Europe in the early modern period with both hands. This reconstruction of womanhood has resulted in a voluminous investigation of one half of (man)kind. Hufton examines womanhood in its entirety from almost every possible angle: marriage strategies, being a wife, motherhood, widowhood, the mistress and harlot, the witch, the "Lady", and even the rambunctious rioter. No stone is left unturned in reporting the lives of women from this period. In every chapter - each of which could stand as a book in itself - Hufton has done thorough research by examining a wide scale of sources in several languages, and has revealed how versatile she is in the terrain of women's history (the bibliography alone is a gold mine).

In the chapter concerning motherhood Hufton has approached many watershed issues in the debate among family historians and historians of childhood. By re-examining motherhood in a international, cultural, socio-economical, and geographical context Hufton has zoomed in on many arguments taken to heart by orthodox and revisionistic family historians such as birthing, maternal-breastfeeding, and a mother's role in educating her children, and has unearthed many significant distinctions in practice and thought.

Childbirth until the late 17th century was a special female affair. The mother, stationed in the childbed, was surrounded by women friends and family members known as "gossips" who kept her preoccupied with juicy information - "something intimate about every man in the village". The ring-leader of this female swarm was a knowledgeable mid-wife who helped deliver the child. The baby determined the birthing procedure. Some mid-wives not only fulfilled the physical task of delivering children but in Catholic countries sometimes assumed the spiritual duty of baptizing an infant if its death was near at hand. By the 18th century (male) physicians infiltrated the domains of the delivery chamber abetted with medical attributes such as forceps by which the birthing mechanism could be manipulated. Here, Hufton is correct about developments in many countries in Europe but has disregarded the smaller incongruities. For example in the Dutch Republic the midwife remained master in the practice of delivering children, and even today many children in the Netherlands are born at home under the supervision of a midwife.

When posing the issue of maternal-breastfeeding in western Europe Hufton keenly defuses the grenade thrown by orthodox historians of childhood such as Philippe Aries and Lawrence Stone who claimed that the practice of farming children out to wet-nurses was a widespread phenomenon and a sign of parental indifference. Medical and moralistic treatises from the 17th and 18th centuries have also bolstered the idea that maternal-breastfeeding left much to be desired. When sketching an image of practice and belief about maternal-breastfeeding and wet-nursing for this period Hufton begins with the deduction that children - in general - were nursed by their natural mother, and thereafter she elaborates on the numerous marginal practices of wet-nursing in socio-economic and geographical groups such aristocrats, urban elites, and abandoned children on which the historian-critics have heavily focused. If a mother was incapable of suckling her own infant a wet nurse was the only solution. Parents who hired a wet-nurse were quite cautious and did so scrupulously. Medical manuals assisted parents on how to select the best candidate for the job. A good milk producing woman could most likely be sought in the countryside (fresh air). "Ideally, she was in her mid- to late twenties, had box-shaped breasts, a milk supply of the right consistency in superabundance and good health as judged by her complexion and teeth." For infant feeding a real alternative to a wet-nurse arose when cow's milk diluted with boiled water became safe. Hufton not only examined whether mothers naturally fed their children or had a wet-nurse but also explored the intentions behind the deed: the healthiest situation for their child.

Child-bearing and infant-feeding were matters that confronted mothers directly, and their options were relatively limited. When addressing the educational task of mothers in the early modern period Hufton's investigation becomes more engrossing due to the diffuseness of women's backgrounds. An upper-class mother might only have to oversee the educational routine of her children due to the slew of nursemaids, governors, and tutors that collaborated in the educational regime. Besides being trained in the subtleties of being a mother and good wife, needlework, singing, deportment, and the learning of the basics subjects and French were the intellectual highlights of a girl's education. The ultimate aim for mothers of all social backgrounds was to enhance her daughter's chances of a good marital match. Teaching a daughter to be virtuous, hardworking, thrifty, and chaste were the duties of motherhood in reaching that goal. Hufton examines all social strata of early modern society to illustrate how mothers accomplished this goal. For example, teaching daughters a few notches down the social ladder was more practical: daughters worked side by side with their mothers cooking, cleaning, sewing, and tending the garden and farm animals. The mother-daughter relationship is regarded as the strongest bond, and considering the close training girls received rightly so.

Hufton's impressionistic writing style makes The Prospect Before Her a sheer literary delight. As she concludes about motherhood, the most unfortunate women of the early modern period were those without mothers. Step-mothers favored their own children and the orphaned girl was regarded as a tragic person. "The plight of Cinderella struck a chord familiar to all who listened, and most of the listeners must have known that fairy godmothers were few and far between".

Benjamin Roberts University of Groningen, The Netherlands