How would life be like if you were a woman in the 18th century juggling as a housewife and a mother with a busy career as a midwife? Laurel Thatcher Ulrich presents a novel, “A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Base on Her Diary, 1785-1812,” about a midwife and her life in the 18th century balancing between being a mother and being a professional. Ulrich defines Martha Ballard as a 54 year old midwife and a healer for the New England community. Martha traveled around her community to help pregnant women delivered their babies and healed sick people. Martha Ballard is also a mother of six children who she cares for. In addition to being a busy housewife and working as a midwife and running her own home business which became a big
…show more content…
She was a mother to a total of nine children, and three unfortunately that have passed. She was born in a small town of Oxford in 1735 and moved to Hallowell, Maine after she got married. Martha was an uneducated woman, but she could write her own diary and was able to provide healing help for the sick. This made me questioned how and where did she learned to medically treat people. In the book, Ulrich stated that Martha’s family members were well educated, including her brother and uncle. Martha had corresponded with her brother, Jonathan Moore, who graduated from Howard College (p 9-10). This may have been the explanation to how she could write, but I also realized that her writing was not well structured. She wrote accordingly to what her thoughts were. She did not care about the spelling in her writings. Martha’s uncle and brother-in law both were physicians. Ulrich stated that Martha was able to care for the sick in her hometown Oxford may have come from the Barton family educational background (p 10). In other words, when Martha still living in her Oxford she already had experience and been exposed to treating ill patients. I believe this help Martha become familiar with treating the …show more content…
In the mid-18th century women started to choose their own marriage based on love and not for economic standards. Young people exercised the right to choose whom they love and what they want to do with their lives. The diary shows that young generation choose their own spouse without outside influence. Martha discussed that marriage in her family was not as a big of an event to celebrate. They got together and pray and wish well for the couples. Traditions in the 18th century insist that the bride had to learn how to be a good wife and do a cleaning or cooking for a couple of months, after that, the real marriage would begin (p 141). I believe that different cultures held different expectation of marriages and ideas. According to Martha’s diary, in that period of time housework was the primary job for women because it belonged to them as
She was a mother to a total of nine children, and three unfortunately that have passed. She was born in a small town of Oxford in 1735 and moved to Hallowell, Maine after she got married. Martha was an uneducated woman, but she could write her own diary and was able to provide healing help for the sick. This made me questioned how and where did she learned to medically treat people. In the book, Ulrich stated that Martha’s family members were well educated, including her brother and uncle. Martha had corresponded with her brother, Jonathan Moore, who graduated from Howard College (p 9-10). This may have been the explanation to how she could write, but I also realized that her writing was not well structured. She wrote accordingly to what her thoughts were. She did not care about the spelling in her writings. Martha’s uncle and brother-in law both were physicians. Ulrich stated that Martha was able to care for the sick in her hometown Oxford may have come from the Barton family educational background (p 10). In other words, when Martha still living in her Oxford she already had experience and been exposed to treating ill patients. I believe this help Martha become familiar with treating the …show more content…
In the mid-18th century women started to choose their own marriage based on love and not for economic standards. Young people exercised the right to choose whom they love and what they want to do with their lives. The diary shows that young generation choose their own spouse without outside influence. Martha discussed that marriage in her family was not as a big of an event to celebrate. They got together and pray and wish well for the couples. Traditions in the 18th century insist that the bride had to learn how to be a good wife and do a cleaning or cooking for a couple of months, after that, the real marriage would begin (p 141). I believe that different cultures held different expectation of marriages and ideas. According to Martha’s diary, in that period of time housework was the primary job for women because it belonged to them as