Male child bed
The so-called male child 's bed (French Couvade [kuˈvaːd]) is a custom that was widespread among various indigenous peoples and in some cases still is. The father and mother of the newborn baby take on certain behavioral and fasting obligations for a limited period of time.
The need
As for the background of the custom, natives claim that activity by the man would harm the child. More plausible, however, is the interpretation that this can be used to deceive envious spirits who would wait during pregnancy to harm the newborn and weak child. When the man lay down in the hammock or on the woman's bed, the evil spirits were distracted and possibly “thought” that the child had not even been born. This allowed the newborn to spend the first few weeks without the influence of evil and debilitating spirits.
According to a refuted thesis by Johann Jakob Bachofen , the couvade was mainly practiced in those societies that were on the threshold from what he believed to be a matriarchy to a patriarchy .
In Europe, the male child's bed is evidently of pre-Indo-European origin. It was preserved among the Basques until the middle of the 19th century . But it is also passed down from South America and Southeast Asia as well as from the Balearic and Canary Islands.
literature
- Hugo Kunike : The couvade or the so-called male child's bed. Hall a. S .: John, 1912 (Leipzig, Univ., Diss., 1912).
- Jack Heinowitz: The man in different circumstances. The guide for the exciting phase of becoming a father. Munich 1999 (Mosaik Verlag). ISBN 3-576-11200-6 .
- Pschyrembel Dictionary Sexuality. Berlin / New York 2003 (Art. “Männerkindbett”, p. 316). ISBN 3-11-016965-7 .