In ancient times, because of their status, children of emperors' families were generally not breastfed by their mothers, but were specially fed to princes and princesses by wet nurses. As the saying goes, when they grow up, princes naturally feel different from wet nurses. In ancient times, it was common for women to lack milk, and there were no substitutes such as milk powder and milk. In order to raise their children, they had to ask a wet nurse to feed them.
In ancient times, a wet nurse was a woman employed by others to nurse her children. The wet nurse in the palace used to be called wet nurse, wet nurse, nipple, nipple or wet nurse. The beginning of life depends on breast milk to survive. The original meaning of female breast is breastfeeding, but as a mammal, women only produce milk after childbirth. For the wet nurse in Alter Hof, the baby she gave birth to was crying with hunger, but the milk had to meet the needs of the royal children, which was contrary to motherhood, but life forced her to do nothing. For royal women, there may be many reasons for hiring a wet nurse to breast-feed their children. But for many poor women in the lower class, being a wet nurse seems to be their natural occupation.
Nannies generally come from civilian families, and folk women are proud of entering the palace. If they can be chosen as the nanny of the prince, they will be able to enjoy the prosperity and wealth for the rest of their lives and get a heavy burial after their death. But the selection system for wet nurses is very strict. Adequate milk is the most basic, followed by excellent personality and appearance, as well as the quality of milk. After the milk drips out, put it in the shade to dry. If there is no smell and scum, there is a chance to enter the palace and be elected as a wet nurse.
From the literature of traditional Chinese medicine, human milk is regarded as the best health care product. Therefore, in addition to the normal dietary needs, such as medicine, alchemy, health care for the elderly, etc., a large number of fresh human milk products are needed, and wet nurses have become a profession. In addition, if you are elected as a royal wet nurse, it will help improve your family status and reduce the tax burden of the corvee. Moreover, the wars of past dynasties are complicated and the population ratio is unbalanced. Usually, husbands go to war and come back several years later. Women's family life is difficult and pregnant women can't live. So they joined the government and were taxed as wet nurses.
Another reason is that if mother's milk is insufficient, now there is milk or milk powder to replace it, which should not be common before. In order to raise the children, she found a wet nurse. Some wet nurses may have transferred their maternal love to another child because their child died prematurely (the survival rate of infants in the past was not high, especially those from poor families). Most wet nurses love their children. Although they are not their own, they are all raised by themselves. Moreover, some children are more pro-wet than their mothers, and they will support her when they grow up, also out of gratitude.
1. Fear of pain and suffering. The biggest feature of children is that they don't make trouble or knock cute, but crying is also very tiring, especially for children who are prone to hunger and have to breastfeed many times a day, especially at night. Those spoiled big ladies can't eat or don't want to eat this bitterness. In addition, the wet nurse not only feeds but also takes care of the baby, just like modern people have a new moon and have to feed. Moreover, staying up late and sleeping badly will affect your appearance, which is very unwilling to accept for the wife of a rich family. Besides, my husband has three wives and four concubines, so he must try his best to protect himself.
2. In order not to affect the life of husband and wife. In ancient times, rich people were royalty, men were three wives and four concubines, and women died easily. In addition to having children, they have to get along with their husbands when they are young. Breastfeeding is a long-term job, which is obviously a great potential danger for these women.
When the court nurse first appeared, I'm afraid I couldn't take the exam. In order to strengthen the education of princes and princes, the Western Zhou Dynasty established a nursing education system, and selected women in the harem as wet nurses and nannies to undertake the system of protecting and teaching princes and princes' affairs. The Book of Rites records that shortly after the birth of the prince and the prince, that is, "if you choose between the mothers and the available ones, you must be generous, kind, gentle, respectful, cautious and taciturn, so that you can be the teacher of your son, followed by your mother, and then your mother." Others have nothing to do. " Teachers, loving mothers and wet nurses are collectively called "three mothers", which bear part of the responsibilities of mothers, among which "teachers teach Tao well; A loving mother, judging those who want evil; Nanny, the one who sleeps in it. " In a word, they * * * should be responsible for the moral cultivation of His Royal Highness the Prince as well as the daily life. In addition to "San Niang", there was a wet nurse in the court at that time, nominally nursing the little prince and the prince, but in fact, because the wet nurse and the child were accompanied day and night, their own morality, knowledge and other literacy also had a great impact on the little prince and the prince. Therefore, at that time, the choice of wet nurses was also very cautious, and they all chose the doctor's concubine or the husband's wife. The teaching of court breastfeeding also influenced the family education of ordinary doctors at that time. The Book of Rites says, "The son of a doctor has a mother." Mother is a wet nurse.
After that, in feudal society, most courts hired wet nurses for babies. When the Warring States invaded Wei, Wang Wei's whole family was killed, and only the little boy less than one year old was taken out of the palace by the wet nurse, sacrificing "barbarians". Later, the wet nurse was betrayed, killed by Qin Jun, and killed by random arrows. When the nurse swallowed her last breath, she tried to block the sharp arrow with her body to protect the little boy. The performance of the wet nurse, in addition to doing her best, is out of a pure and selfless true love. Wei Gongzi's wet nurse is just an unknown person, but her righteous act not only saved Wei Gongzi's life, but also made her deeds immortal. After hearing this, the king of Qin sacrificed her with three animals: cattle, sheep and pigs, in recognition of his righteous act.
There are three wet nurses in history. They came from humble origins, but they all had the honor of being the emperor's wet nurse. Although their circumstances are different, they all have one thing in common, or they are indulged or become the secret or lover of the emperor. So who are these three women and what are their abilities? The first wet nurse was a big wet nurse and won the favor of Liu Che, the Emperor of the Han Dynasty. Liu Che even rewarded the wet nurse's request or accidental demand without hesitation. But unfortunately, the children and grandchildren of this big wet nurse did not meet expectations. They could have used the rewards they got to make the whole family well prepared, so that they could eat, dress and be carefree, but they just got her into trouble. But even if Emperor Wu hated her offspring, he couldn't bear to make the wet nurse sad and kept accommodating. This is enough to witness the status of the wet nurse.
The second big wet nurse is a Hakka who is well known all over the world. Because Oedipus of Mingxi Sect is well known and unusual for her, and this so-called nine-year-old woman is really arrogant, and her manners and ostentation are even worse than her biological mother. It's really an honor for Hakkas to be around him. No wonder even Wei Zhongxian, who has always been an absolute monarch, will give her my meager sensibilities. But the real dragon bed from breastfeeding is Wannanmu, formerly known as Wan Zhener. It can be said that she is not only Zhu Jianshen's traditional breastfeeding grace, but also a lamp in his lonely soul. Although they are nineteen years apart, Wan Zhener is not qualified to be his imperial concubine anyway, but he will stay with her without hesitation, even if it is unreasonable and secular.
In addition to physiological reasons, many mothers choose not to breastfeed for social reasons. They want to get back into shape quickly so that they can wear beautiful clothes. Breastfeeding is considered unfashionable. Economic reasons are equally important. If the mother takes care of the baby by herself, then the family affairs have to be handled by others, which is much more expensive than hiring a wet nurse. Some mothers can take care of themselves, but they don't want to take on complicated responsibilities, so they simply hire a wet nurse to liberate themselves. Some wrong ideas at that time also made mothers stay away from breastfeeding. In Tolstoy's War and Peace, Natasha breastfed herself "against the criticism of the world", bravely refuting the view that breastfeeding, which was popular at that time, was not conducive to the mother's own health.