Back to the Shops: The High Street in History and the Future

Abstract

ship on women’s experiences of birth is her focus on the ways the birth process created and defined community. Her arguments about community culminate in the fifth and final chapter, which explores the ways in which community was delineated by common exchanges surrounding birth. It is also in this chapter that Fox gives the clearest sense of how social status shaped women’s birth experiences. Women of the lower and middling classes defined their birthing communities by spatial proximity—women who lived nearby were connected by the intimate knowledge of one another’s reproductive lives forged by proximity, and they joined together to manage and celebrate the process of birth. Common rituals such as the tea gathering, when neighbors visited the mother and baby, or the practice of taking the new baby around to neighbor’s homes to receive gifts and recognition, provided occasions to delineate and reinforce community networks. In a literal sense, these practices demonstrated who was part of the mother’s and new baby’s community. Fox’s analysis of networks of information among women is particularly striking. As Fox writes, “Communal watching and waiting was not just a feature of birthing. It could, for example, encompass early pregnancy (with speculation about changing menstrual cycles of body shape), newly married couples or illicit sexual liaisons. Regardless of subject, this economy of talk and information sharing between neighbors reinforced and policed the moral values of the community and shaped rules for everyday living” (171). This kind of watching, for instance, allowed women to gain advance knowledge of illegitimate pregnancies and made it possible for them to act swiftly to support or repudiate unwed mothers. Indeed, Fox’s analysis of several cases of illegitimate births and infanticide accusations reveals that women who participated in exchanges of information tended to be incorporated into the community of women despite their transgressions, while those who were unwilling to do so were less likely to receive support and the crucial testimony that could shield them from legal repercussions. Fox’s book is engaging and readable and offers both a clear introduction to the practical and ritual elements of eighteenth-century childbirth as well as an intricate analysis of the social significance of birth practices. Her work would be strengthened by more attention to the significance of class differences in shaping the birthing process. Many of her most intimate sources, for instance, come from the personal correspondence of the English gentry; the importance of Fox’s analysis of these sources is not lessened by the fact that her conclusions do not apply to the full spectrum of English society, but it would be helpful to have more clarity about the limits of these interpretations. Although Fox’s narrative is rightly centered on the concept of continuity, she does tie her analysis to key changes in the social landscape, suggesting that “while the function of the birth community remained reasonably static over the eighteenth century, the status of the individuals present in the birthing chamber was increasingly restructured to those of a similar social status to the woman giving birth” (164). By engaging more fully with class dynamics she could more fully incorporate the significance of ongoing changes in English society while strengthening her arguments about continuity.