Love usually means having children.
Women in many countries, however, opt not to have a child. In the US , for example, the percentage of
women in their 40s with three or more children fell from 59 percent in 1976 to
29 percent in 2010. In Italy ,
a nation with a tradition of large families, the percentage of women in their
40s with four or more children dropped from around 17 percent in the early
1980s to less than 5 today, according to Yale Global.
Women's choice to
be childless is apparently connected to parental, financial and career concerns
as well as anxieties about the high rate of separation and divorce among
couples.
But women who are
childless by choice still remain the exception rather than the rule. Women still want to experience motherhood and
men still want assurance of a lineage. For women, the instinct to nurture predominates. Men, on the other hand, tend to see their progeny as a form of
immortality and assurance of continuity through generations of blood passed on.
The desire for offsprings is as old as earth itself and ensured
as well as encouraged through many ways in different cultures. In-vitro
fertilization is an acceptable modern method to encourage conception.
Other methods are
not as scientific. Potions, certain
foods chants, amulets and rituals are used to ensure fertility.
Photo by Lakbaybayan.com |
Cantonese women
in China
rub their bellies against a coffin in the belief that the deceased is somehow
able to share their procreative abilities.
At the Hounen
Matsuri Festival held every March 15 in Japan , volunteers carry a long
wooden phallus in the hope that its regenerative powers will help childless
couples.
Photo from
independent.co.uk
Infertile women
in Ethiopia
are lowered naked by priests to a sacred pool located in the highland town of Lalibela. A
picture of one such rite is shown bow.
Photo by Gali
Tibbon
Childless couples
in the US ,
who cannot afford medically induced conception are advised to eat plenty of
cucumbers, apples, basil, myrtle and hazel and to wear tie pins or necklace
pendants depicting a unicorn or a fish. Men are told to carry a piece of
mandrake root at all times and women, three pieces of hazel nuts.
As for me, I'll
take oysters anytime.
- Ariel Murphy
Loved the history here, you did a great job on this one...I have to admit where men are concerned, I'm in a possibly rare category of not wanting children because of a desire to pass on my lineage. I do Love my Step-son, but only knew him from the age of 15 :-)
ReplyDeleteI love children and wish I could have more than two but it's too late now. Thanks Pete!
DeleteI love children too - I have a dear friend (middle 50's)in Florida who adopted her niece's 3 children when the niece died suddenly in her 20's. The Youngest ones 4 & 9 would call me Uncle Pete and run to me when I arrived giving a hug to each of my legs. Since I have sent them calendars & cards from HI, they are begging Janet to bring them here :-)
ReplyDeleteAdults are attracted to young children and interact with them to recapture whatever form of innocence, purity, trust and simplicity they may have lost on the wayside of life. Children's lack of artifice, guile and malice are also refreshing.
Delete