19th Century Italy Abandoned Children Essay

Mary Fissell talks about how the women in the peasant class and the middle class often suffered from the idea of women being “baby machines”. One thing that I found interesting was that this belief also extended to the aristocratic class. The last chapter of Fissell’s book gives an example of an instance where the paternity of the child was called into question. The example Fissell gives is of the birth of the heir to King James II of England. Through Fissell’s research she discovered that it had originally been thought that the heir of King James II was the son of a miller. Another thing that Fissell discovered was the belief that King James II’s wife had been faking the pregnancy and while she was in the birthing room a baby had been smuggled in, in a warm pan. Fissell stresses the idea that patronage meant everything to people; children were expected to look like the

During the 16th century in England, upper class families had a strict and disciplinary way of child-rearing due to their perceptions of children. They viewed children as being confused sinners, whom needed to be taught in a harsh and strict environment in order to learn and become wholesome. For example, in Doc 1A, babies are described as “wayward and impulsive...altogether inclined to evil.” This perspective comes from a religious standpoint: a Calvinist minister named Robert Cleaver. This is a predictable point-of-view, because the religious believed that babies were sinners who must be disciplined and educated in order to become good (Doc 1A). However, there was a drastic change in the next couple of centuries. In the 17th century, children

Dreams of being a mother during the 19th century were demolished when the birth rate of babies increased dramatically, for the only way to “care” for a child, was to abandon them. A mother’s instincts are loving, protecting and caring unconditionally for their child. Through the early times, the birth rate of newborns was insignificantly high, due to many reasons, one being the lack of a way to avoid pregnancies. The consequence of mothers was having to "get rid" of their babies, for their dreams of becoming future mothers were "smothered by poverty and want" (p.68). Therefore, thousands of helpless unwanted infants were left out in the dangerous slums of New York City

According to Kasia O’Neill Murray and Sarah Gesiriech article “A Brief Legislative History of the Child Welfare System,” they claims, “Throughout the history of the United States, the child welfare system has evolved according to changing beliefs and attitudes about what role government should play in the protection and care of abused and neglected children” (Murray & Gesiriech, p.1). These changes has benefit families and children which help secure the safety and the physical needs of those in need. Murray and Gesiriech claims, that during the 1700’s many children were remove from their parents because they cannot provide the basic needs and care for their children. Murray & Gesiriech, Zastrow point out, the first orphanages were stablish

As a mother, I am saddened to learn that “women preferred to kill their infants to save them from the Spaniards; while some mothers drowned their babies from sheer depression.”

The early twentieth century was a turning point in American history-especially in regards to the acquisition of women's rights. While the era was considered to be prosperous and later thought to be a happy-go-lucky time, in actuality, it was a time of grave social conflict and human suffering (Parish, 110). Among those who endured much suffering were women. As Margaret Sanger found out, women, especially those who were poor, had no choice regarding pregnancy. The only way not to get pregnant was by not having sex- a choice that was almost always the husband's. This was even more true in the case of lower-class men for whom, 'sex was the poor man's only luxury' (Douglas, 31). As a nurse who assisted in delivering

Many tragic events have occurred throughout history that lead to the protection and advocacy of children, for example in Greece, during ancient times, infanticide would be legal and even enforced under certain cases like illegitimate or deformed children. Children would be sold into slavery or be put to work if families needed the extra income. Unwanted European newborns were discarded without penalty and children were pushed into adulthood as quickly as possible. “Owing to the high infant mortality rates of the times, estimated at one or two in three, the investment of love in a young child may have been so unrewarding that by some ruse of nature… it was suppressed. Perhaps also the frequent childbearing put less value on the product. A child was a born and died and another took its place” (Tuchman, 19778, p.50).

The modern world is in the midst of reconstructing gender roles; debates about contraception, reproductive freedom, and female inequality are contentious and common. The majority now challenges the long established assertion that women’s bodies are the eminent domain of patriarchal control. In the past, a woman’s inability to control her reproductive choices could come with ruinous consequences. Proponents of patriarchal control argue against reproductive independence with rhetoric from religious texts and with anecdotes of ‘better days,’ when women were subservient. Often, literature about childbearing fails to acknowledge the possibility of women being uninterested in fulfilling the role of motherhood.

In addition, many people and books talk about how nobody loved their children before the Renaissance, which led to the abandoning of these children at hospitals and orphanages, which is not true. Rudolph Bell in his book “How to Do it: Guides to Good Living for Renaissance Italians, was really important for Italians because reading these guidelines helped them to know how to care for their children and how to raise them up to become good citizens. However, some women weren’t fortunate enough to be educated and come from a wealthy family so taking care of their children was hard for them. Therefore, they had to take them to orphanages for them to take care of their children bad later on getting back their children when life is great for them.

Since World War II, Italian society has profoundly changed, with a significant impact on daily life. One of the main elements of change is the more visible role women play in society outside the home, such as increased participation in higher education and various professions. One aspect of this changed role is that Italy records one of the lowest average numbers of children per woman in the world, as well as some of the lowest birth and fertility rates. (Brittanica Online Encyclopedia)

Motherhood was an expected part of the wife’s life. Woman would have a large number of babies right after each other although some babies would not survive. “High mortality rates must have overshadowed the experience of motherhood in ways difficult to

People are getting tired of going online and seeing a pictures of someone’s kid over and over again unnecessarily. It has not always been like that, in the Renaissance it was definitely different, almost opposites. Childhood was not taken seriously and parents did not play a big role in a child’s life. Do not get anything mistook, parents were not the worst people ever. Trends and ways of life back then just seem unusual and crazy, but that was the norm. Life in general was totally different from all of what we have now. Imagine having to be independent right when you get out of the womb. For most kids in the Renaissance, that was reality.

In this assignment I was tasked with finding out what children in the 18th century, specifically orphans went through, here is what I found out online about orphans. Back in the 18th century there were a bunch of women getting pregnant whether they were married or not, which means most of the time if they weren’t married the guy would leave her and the women would have to make some hard choices about what to do with the baby. She would usually have a few options depending on if she was poor or if she was financially stable. If she was poor she would most likely not be able to give it up for adoption, which means she only had few other choices. One choice that a lot would take were to kill the baby (which was abortion), this option to many

Nicolae Ceausescu was a Romanian activist, military leader, and president during the 71 years of his life. He was raised by peasant parents so he saw firsthand the depredations that the people on the lower rungs of society had been forced to accept throughout the many years of the monarchy that ruled the country. He went to work in a factory when he was just 11 years old, and he almost immediately began following the communist philosophies and reactionary politics. After World War II when Soviet Russia was beginning to dominate the region, he, like many of his contemporaries, made sure that they were members of the ruling class that was forming (Kaplan 81). He believed the communist ideology, and he was positioned, because of his associations, to become a prominent member of the new party. When the communists came to power, he was first a Minister of Defense, and then the head of the defense forces. When it came time to select a leader after the death of Ceausescu's good friend and mentor Georghe Georghiu-Dej who had been the country's leader, Ceausescu was selected as a compromise between the many different factions that wanted to rule the country (Kaplan 102).

In Ann Radcliffe's "The Italian", the very first thing that we see described is a veiled woman: "It was in the church of San Lorenzo at Naples, in the year 1758, that Vincentio di Vivaldi first saw Ellena di Rosalba. The sweetness and fine expression of her voice attracted his attention to her figure, which had a distinguished air of delicacy and grace; but her face was concealed in her veil. So much was he fascinated by the voice, that a most painful curiosity was excited as to her countenance, which he fancied must express all the sensibility of character that the modulation of her tones indicated" (5).Even without knowing anything about Gothic elements, this indicates very clearly what the quality and tone of the