Tender Mothers: Breastfeeding, Wetnursing, and the Limits of Social Critique From the Late Ottoman to the Early Republican Periods (1880-1930)

Abstract

The historical background of wet-nursing dates back to ancient ages as early as 2000 BC Wet-nursing originally arose from a peculiar demand in milk for those who were not capable of producing it for their babies because of the milk shortage in their breasts. Mother’s milk has played a significant part in the health of neonates in the absence of infant formulas. However, wet-nursing took the shape of a line of work in the long term and kept its existence until the rise of the 19th century’s new infant feeding practices, such as milk bottles. At the turn of the 20th century, wet-nursing has already been in disfavor against contemporary scientific developments and also turned into a target of social critique. Popular literature of medical instructions and the intelligentsia who provide the social consciousness of the urban middle classes every so often expostulated that Turkish women abstained from domestic tasks. The essential character of critique intertwined with the normative gender performances and evoked the voice of centralization. Furthermore, wet-nursing used to function in creating kinship between families according to Islamic tradition and might have caused acute social complications, like the marriage between milk siblings or inheritance issues. This article tries to analyze the breast-feeding and wet-nursing practices in the late Ottoman and early Republican periods in the context of gender roles through the popular literature of the period.

Keywords

• wetnursing
• breastfeeding
• motherhood
• ottoman empire
• gender
• osmanlı devleti
• süt annelik
• emzirme
• annelik
• toplumsal cinsiyet