Sacrificed for Honor reveals a shocking and little-known system for the surveillance and control of unmarried mothers and their children that operated in Catholic Europe for nearly three centuries, ending just a century ago.
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Sacrificed for Honor reveals a shocking and little-known system for the surveillance and control of unmarried mothers and their children that operated in Catholic Europe for nearly three centuries, ending just a century ago.
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Seller's Description:
Very Good in Very Good dust jacket. 0807056049. Kb6...xiii, 252 pp. Notes, references, index. Illustrated with 5 tables, 2 maps, 2 figures. Octavo. Bright red dust jacket with painting of a pensive pregnant Italian woman. Jacket has minor shelf wear, flaps intact. Book itself is clean and tight, small erasure on the first free end paper, otherwise clean and tight, very nice copy. In this book, historian Kertzer reveals the shocking and little-known system that operated just a century ago, when in cities such as Milan and Florence up to one out of every three newborns was abandoned. Kertzer shows how the establishment of foundling homes by both Catholic and civic organizations began int eh 13th century as a way to discourage abortion and infanticide, while allowing unwed mothers to avoid dishonor. But as the Church attempted to increase its control over family life, these institutions eventaually became the center of a system that deprived women of their freedom, encouraged doctors and midwives to inform on their patients, turned neighbor against neighbor and resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands of babies from starvation and disease...; 8vo 8"-9" tall; 252 pages.