Man-midwives

“As long as women’s traditional collective culture remained intact across all social classes, childbirth retained this leveling quality. And surely this was why the man-midwife was so attractive to those wealthy and literate women who by about 1750 had collectively constructed a new female culture. . . . The midwife, by her very presence – whatever her actual deportment -- served as a tangible reminder that ladies were mere women. But the man-midwife offered proof of their superior social status: who but ladies could afford the 10 guineas that William Hunter charged for deliveries?” (A. Wilson, 191).