Towards a Sociology of the Nursing Woman in Late Antiquity and Early Byzantium
Towards a Sociology of the Nursing Woman in Late Antiquity and Early Byzantium
This lecture presentation concerns an early chapter of the fascinating social history of breastfeeding. It examines the social realities and ideologies surrounding the nursing woman (mother and wet nurse) from the first centuries of our common era until seventh-century Byzantium. Ancient sources and earlier research are revisited in an attempt to unravel the economic, social,…