The ideal of woman as mother changed between the colonial era and the period following the Revolution, shifting from the image of the fecund woman bearing many children to the sentimental image of the responsible mother nurturing her children. Doyle’s discussion of “Maternal Bodies” does not discount the social and ideological issues behind that development: Enlightenment thought, republican ideology, evangelical religions, and a more diverse and market-driven society. Her focus, however, is the changing concept of the female physical body or corporeality (a word used throughout the book) during that time.
Probably the most important influence in this shift from maternal fecundity to sentimentality was the intrusion of the male midwife into the birthing process. The presence of female midwives made birth a social activity, a shared experience of friends and family who took care of one another. The entry of men into the event brought the possibility of sexual...