Browse:PREGNANCY PROPERLY PERFECTED (Volume 4, entries 6887)
PREGNANCY PROPERLY PERFECTED
Volume 4, entries 6887. Source context: THE PHYSICAL HUMAN BODY ITSELF → FOLK MEDICINE → CURES FOR AND PROTECTION AGAINST AILMENT AND DISEASE. Entries listed under this heading in the source volume.
Entries
Entry 6887
If a woman didn't have no intahco'se wit no boy friend or man or sompin lak dat, she would have a hard time [at childbirth] see. Dat's all ah've heard of dat. (How do you mean if they didn't have intercourse?) Well, jis' lak if ah wus impregnant, dat's whut chew mean. Well, ah wus impregnant. Well, maybe mah husband wus away. Well, ah an' 'im nevah had no dealin's wit each othah at all, see. Well, regardless tuh whut de othah man done, dat would git me in birthin' dis chile, if ah nevah had no intahco'se or nuthin tuh do wit dis man [I would have a hard time at delivery]. [Having had contact with the other man during her husband's absence, she must continue this contact to avoid a hard delivery. This reminds me of a tale I read years ago, an old Italian novella, the type of Boccaccio's Decameron: The husband after fertilizing his wife left home on a long journey. As time past, a neighbor, a trickster, informed the woman that her husband had left home without completing his task. The parts of a baby, he told her, were made at different times. Unless the husband returned soon the baby would be born with an arm, a leg, almost any- thing missing. To make a short story shorter, the neighbor, being a man, agreed to help her. The baby was born with all its parts.]