Nanny is a profession. If you become a royal nanny, it will help improve your family status and reduce the corvee tax. The source of wet nurses is often because of the unbalanced population in the era of war and strife, the husband has not returned for years, and women are unable to support their family life, so they have to join the government and act as wet nurses to offset taxes.
Ancient women always looked for a wet nurse when they were pregnant. When they give birth, they are always taken care of by the wet nurse. Most of them didn't breastfeed themselves. Why?
First of all, all the people who can get wet nurses are well-off families and often have a certain position in society. Inviting wet nurses is equivalent to a class symbol, similar to having maids at home, which shows their class to some extent. This is a phenomenon caused by the concept of hierarchy under the feudal system, and it is also the standard for grading.
Secondly, the existence of wet nurses shows that most women at that time were weak, and even after giving birth, they could not have milk to breastfeed. At that time, the society did not have milk powder as a substitute like our modern society, so when the biological mother could not breastfeed her baby, she had to go outside to find a wet nurse to give her baby enough nutrition.
Another reason is that women themselves have no extra energy to take care of their babies who have just arrived on earth. After all, children are prone to crying at night and need to be put to sleep in time. In addition, ancient women stayed in the boudoir for a long time, seldom exercised, and their physical fitness was naturally poor, so they couldn't afford to toss.
In order to make yourself feel at ease, it is also essential to ask the wet nurse to help with the children.
More than that, most women are afraid that breastfeeding will affect their figure and lead to their falling out of favor in front of their husbands, so they will choose to invite a wet nurse to take care of their children, and they will concentrate on restoring their original figure and beauty.
It can be seen that wet nurses are like symbols of society, and their existence is really indispensable. They are also derivatives under the feudal system, and they are also interesting phenomena we see in the process of exploring history.
There is a saying in the Ming Dynasty writer Gui Youguang's Ling Xuan Zhi: "The first mother and maid are also very thick." This old woman, the handmaid of my late grandmother, cared for two generations, and her late mother was very kind to her. This old woman is actually the wet nurse or wet nurse that we often see in historical plays.
Nanny, as its name implies, is a woman employed by wealthy families in ancient times who often breastfed babies. Xunzi? The theory of ceremony: "wet nurse, a person who eats and drinks." That's what it means.
Mammy, this profession has existed since ancient times, and it was common before the invention of milk powder. They can be seen in big families, high society and even the royal court. Why did this profession come into being? From the theory of supply and demand, this is undoubtedly the result of the balance of supply and demand.
Demand mainly comes from wealthy families or privileged classes. In order to continue the wealth and power of this generation, ancient big families often pursued the wealth of their children. Therefore, when a woman gives birth to a child, in order to conceive the next child as soon as possible, she often hires a woman with milk to feed the child. Of course, there is scientific reason in this. After all, breastfeeding can inhibit ovulation. Of course, from the point of view of breastfeeding itself, it is a physical activity and hard work, and most women in large families reject this process.
In the selection of wet nurses, the court is the most stringent. There are strict rules about the age, appearance, health status, milk color and milk color of the wet nurses selected in the palace. Once they are selected, their clothes and diet must obey the arrangement of the palace. It has to be mentioned that in addition to nursing their children, some of the lactating mothers in the palace maintain improper sexual relations with their children, and even act as sexual enlightenment teachers for their children.
The supply of important women comes from poor families. These women usually have children of their own. Out of the need of livelihood, they go to large families to feed other people's babies with their own milk. Many people have done it for a long time and gained the trust of their owners. Some can breastfeed for two or three generations. Of course, there is a price. First of all, they have wasted a lot of youth. Secondly, most of them have to give up their children temporarily or permanently. Maybe we can't deeply understand the feelings of wet nurses today.
No matter what causes the birth of the profession of wet nurse, one thing is certain. In ancient times, wet nurse has become a symbol of the privilege of the upper class and exclusive to the rich. For poor housewives, it is undoubtedly the exclusive victim of this privilege.