It is important to point out, as Dr. Staub explained, that the lower to middle class single women of the time had a thin line to walk. It was bad enough that they were poor, but single? God forbid this woman should get pregnant out of wedlock. I love this woodcut of "The Pitiless Mother". She has a devil figure behind her, showing that she is more prone to evil and weak against it. This is an important point, not something that should be overlooked. This shows up again all throughout history--what about the Salem witch trials? Though leading lady, Jane, is portrayed as a conniving trickster, always in control of the master, Adam, one can see her dilemma when given the facts about the time. In the story, Jane is Adam's mistress for 10-12 years, above his wife in every way but name. The very climbing of the social ladder is something to wag a finger at, being that poverty was seen as guilty--sexualized, immoral, and scheming. Pregnancies of the poverty stricken singles were described as demonstrating how these women were deceptive, monters, and shameful. Were the women to raise the child, she would risk ever getting married, or being able to work. Even the children after birth were considered a "load of woe and shame",
coming from a "polluted womb".Infanticide has been around since the beginning of time, some of the oldest discovered mass grave sites for infants being dated back to Rome and Ashkelon. Infanticide was used as population control, a way to select genders [the ones killed in Ashkelon's case, when this was a problem, always being baby girls], and disposal of disfigured or
diseased offspring. In the time of Renaissance, those in power had no interest in excuses by the mother or seeing it her way. She was simply labled a murderous and dangerous woman--unless of course she was a "happily" married and of upper or middle-class; in this case she was left to her own private matters.
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