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    Reproductive Rights, childbearing and motherhood anxieties in Early Medieval Ireland (Direitos reprodutivos e ansiedade materna na Irlanda na Alta Idade Média)


    Farrell, Elaine Pereira (2025) Reproductive Rights, childbearing and motherhood anxieties in Early Medieval Ireland (Direitos reprodutivos e ansiedade materna na Irlanda na Alta Idade Média). Anos 90, 35 (011): 011. pp. 1-16. ISSN e-ISSN 1983-201X

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    Abstract

    This paper falls in the fields of history of women and medical history discussing Early Irish Medieval legal texts, from the seventh and eighth centuries, written in a Christian milieu both in the vernacular and Hiberno-Latin. It analyses information concerned with reproductive and sexual rights. This paper has three parts: the first analyses vernacular texts ruling the rights of married couples to produce heirs. Early Irish vernacular texts list situations that would give the right to spouses to divorce their partner in case they could not have children together. The second part studies texts that discusses the right of pregnant women to access food, and of breastfeeding babies to be accompanied by their mother and maids in case of need of medical care, and if taken out of their own home for this reason. The third part investigates ecclesiastical canons against couples procreating outside wedlock and/or bound to religious vows. The paper highlights the anxieties women may have suffered about producing children when their families decided that their future was to be wives and mothers, and also, the opposite, the anxieties they felt when they produced illegitimate children, enduring social shame, causing abortion, leading to painful emotions of loss and guilt, and not infrequently, leading to the loss of their own lives.
    Item Type: Article
    Keywords: sexual and reproductive rights; pregnancy; abortion; legal texts; early medieval Ireland;
    Academic Unit: Faculty of Arts,Celtic Studies and Philosophy > School of Celtic Studies > Early Irish (Sean Ghaeilge)
    Item ID: 21506
    Identification Number: 10.22456/1983-201X.130253
    Depositing User: Dr Elaine Pereira Farrell
    Date Deposited: 07 May 2026 15:49
    Journal or Publication Title: Anos 90
    Publisher: Programa de Pós-Graduação em História, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Su
    Refereed: Yes
    Funders: FAPERJ - Carlos Chagas Filho Foundation for Research Support of the State of Rio de Janeiro
    Related URLs:
    Use Licence: This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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