A Child Is Born By Germaline Green
A Child Is Born : Germaline Green (born-1939), born and educated in Australia is a famous feminist writer. In her well know works The Female Eunuch (1970), sex and destiny: The Politics of Human Fertility (1984) and The Change (1991) A Child Is Born Class 12 English
She explores the social and cultural aspects of life of women. she believes that socio-cultural practices are designed to suit male interest; at the same time they further subjugate women. The present piece. A child is born is an extract form her book sex and destiny:
The Politics of Human Fertility. It explores the cultural peculiarities of the East and the west regarding child-birth and parent-child relationship.
A Child Is Born By Germaline Green
In traditional societies in Asia, a mother is kept free from the anxiety of childbirth. There are ways and procedures. A ritual approach to pregnancy keeps a pregnant woman surrounded by taboos and rituals.
This keeps the pregnant woman actively invalid, which helps her to be actively involved which helps her to be free from anxiety. Besides, she is supported by her husband, her family and even the community. She feels secure. She thinks that she is conducting the pregnancy, not vice versa.
Experience of a university graduate
A modern university graduate known to the writer approached her pregnancy like a term assignment. She made note of every development. She clung to her pre-natal exercises.
There she also observed the superstition that acquiring clothes and equipment before the birth was bad luck. The result was that child came in the world without crib or napkins. The hospital refused to cooperate. The birth was practically unattended.
Freedom to live our own lives is more important
The writer concedes that infant and mother mortality rate is higher in traditional societies. But she thinks the freedom to live their own lives is more important to people than lowering the mortality rate.
Western view of marriage in traditional societies
In many traditional societies women at marriage go to live with their mothers-in -law in joint family. Some western anthropologists believe that the bride does not become a member of the new family unity she has borne a child. She also loses her name and is known as the mother of her first born.
They also believe that sexual relations between husband and wife and perfunctory and all mother-in -law are unjust and vindictive. They think that these traditions are backward, cruel and wrong. But the writer thinks their interpretations are wrong.
Difficulties in understanding Women who live Within female society
The great problem in understand women who still live in traditional societies is that the discussions at international fore are conducted in a language that those women cannot speak fluently. So they cannot express themselves.
Besides, they feel that they are told those women withdraw into silent opposition, or do not like to participate in such conferences at all.
Child relationship with his-group.
In a traditional society a child’s relationship with his uncles and aunts is very close with that of his parents. They make the biological family deliberately weak by enforced abstinence or actual separation.
Bringing up children in Bangladesh
The writer gives an account of a Bangladeshi woman how the family look after the children in a joint family. The whole family look after the children under the age of five or six.
One of the daughters-in-law bathes them all, while another cooks food and still another serves them food when all of them sit together to eat. Only at night the children go to their respective mothers to sleep.
Reward of pregnancy
A young Asian woman describes how pregnant women find childbirth rewarding in Bangladesh.
A young pregnant woman goes to her mother’s house for the last few months of pregnancy and about the first three months of the baby’s life.
There she gets an opportunity to live with her sister. The family gives them a lot of love and care. She can eat what she likes .They celebrate the birth of the baby . When the baby is seven days old, there is a naming ceremony.
They give the baby new clothes and they also give the mother a sari. There is feasting. singing and dancing. Garlands of turmeric and garlic are worn to ward to ward off evil spirits.
Impact of western technology
The impact of western medicine in traditional society has caused problems. Allopathic doctors in peasant communities are dependent expensive drugs, equipment and lot of electricity. Most of which they do not have in sufficient quantity.
Here is a description of a modern hospital for ‘ Bantu patients’ in south Africa.
The delivery ward was full of groaning women who were laboring alone. Pools of blood lay on the floor. The nurses were busy with sophisticated modern equipment and ignored the laboring women.
The writer concludes that women will not like to offer their bodies and minds for childbirth. If there is no one at home to welcome the child and praise the mother for her courage. She feels that the peasants rightly oppose the cultural hegemony of western technology despite the high mortality rate in traditional birthplace.
Question Answer A Child Is Born By Germaline Green
Q. 1 How are the ways of managing child-birth in traditional societies useful?
Ans.- The ways of managing childbirth in traditional societies are many and varied. People find their usefulness in the branches (off-shoots) of a family.
It is so because from the fact that people accept them culturally and collectively. It makes the mother free from mental burden reinventing the procedures.
Q. 2 Pregnant woman in a traditional society does not feel that she is alone. Why?
Ans.-It is so because the mother does not have the psychic burden of reinventing the procedures.
Even through the potential catastrophes are alive approach to pregnancy which hems the pregnant woman about with taboos and prohibitions helps make the anxiety manageable. In a traditional society childbirth is a family affair.
Q. 3 What is “truism of anthropologies” that the writer talks about?
Ans.-The truism of anthropologies that newly married woman do not become member of their new family until they have borne a child. Thought after marriage they go to their mother-in –law’s house from their mother’s house.
Q.4 What compels women to withdraw into silent opposition in international forum?
Ans.-The tendency of those women who still live within a female society.
It is to withdraw into silent opposition when participating in international for a conducted in languages which they cannot speak with fluency.
Q. 5 Why had Sudanese women officials stopped going to international conferences?
Ans. Sudanese woman officials stopped going to international conference because someone told about their own lives without consulting them.
Q. 6 Where do sylheti women go to stay during the last stage of pregnancy?
Ans.- She goes to her mother’s house for the last few months of her pregnancy and about the first three months of the baby’s life.
Also Read :-The Artist Summary | Question Answer | Class 12 English
Also Read :-IDEAS THAT HAVE HELPED MANKIND, SUMMARY | CLASS 12 | ENGLISH