An anthropologist on the moon: Anthropology Blog.: When men give birth: the couvade..

Huichol couvade.

“While she is in labor, the Huichol husband sits on the beams placed on his head with a rope tied to the testicles. Every time you have a contraction, the mother pulls the rope. Eventually, the husband felt so much joy the birth of the child and the woman. ”



Males of many companies try to “prove” that they, like women (or even instead of) make babies. In many places there are means or other rituals to emphasize the importance of men in the reproductive process.

The custom to father involvement more directly in reproduction-and give him more credit for what his wife is doing is called couvade,

Couvade (the French couver “incubate”), custom by which the mother during childbirth or immediately after you give your bed the father, and sometimes it’s spoiled and she section.

From the point of view of some women, the couvade is a way that men used to prevail in the process of pregnancy and birth , where they do not have a natural function. For others, the couvade was another way to cheat death. ‘s husband came to be the lightning rod of women, was a brave and assumed the blows of evil spirits. ‘s husband waited in fatal delivery time in bed, fed him as if it were a delicate parturiente, while women performed household chores and tried to warn their status no spirit. still today in some regions of Switzerland and Germany, exposes husband shirt, dress pants whose the mother on the first day you leave home.

Whatever the reason was, anthropologists and geographers from around the world have documented the extent of this practice in both South America, New Guinea and in the states of Nayarit and Jalisco in Mexico. Enrique Gaspar House published in 1924 a tour couvade customs of half the world.



The Huichol tribe (now self Wixarica ) settles in Sierra Madre, in the state of Jalisco , Mexico . It is one of the most remote tribes of current cultures that can be found in North America. Due to this isolation have preserved many of its most archaic traditions and customs. They think that childbirth is a time of great pain and great pleasure, and believe that both pain and joy should be shared by men and women.According Adele Getty:

“The act of giving birth, be it a child, an idea or a work of art, is always accompanied by pain. The Huichol Indians think that the woman’s partner should share the pain and pleasure of giving birth: thus, while she is in labor, the husband sits on the beams placed on his head with a rope tied to the testicles. Every time you have a contraction, the mother pulls the rope. In the end, the husband felt so much joy at the birth of the child as the woman or even more! This habit of sharing the pain of childbirth, in which a man has a sympathetic attitude of brooding before the arrival of the son, is widespread among many natives. “

During delivery man consumes peyote (a hallucinogenic cactus).

The male caribbean of the Guianas Galibia fasted six months from the fifth month of pregnancy of women, stood motionless in the hammock during labor and the first days, and, while the mother went back to work with the newborn in sling He was looked after by all the village women.

In the upper Paraguay , was the same, but with the detail that, when the mother returned to wash the child the first time, could not speak, but only recollection look with her ​​husband.

In Venezuela , this was called “brooding” the mother after birth was incorporated into their jobs, and the husband went to bed complaining of abdominal pains.

Among the Wogeo, on an island off the coast ofNew Guinea , the men whose wife is pregnant say they suffer morning sickness many like them, get tired easily and have to avoid strenuous activities, such as hunting and fighting.

There are some companies, particularly New Guinea, in which men, symbolic or artificially, menstruate. most is done by inserting the instrument into the urethra to make the penis blood. In many of these same societies, men also perform ceremonies symbolically giving birth. Among the Mehinaku, men cook special medicines that are ingested ritually pubescent boys to ensure that boys produce semen.

People in much of New Guinea believe that men not only have an active part in the fact impregnate women, but are also responsible for turning boys in men with semen. believe that children must be separated from influenced not only by their mothers, but of all womanhood. Males can not become “men” to take place this break and not grow and develop naturally until they produce semen. ‘re older men who implanted the sperm so that the boys are able after his produce from this seed. This means that men are, to some extent, responsible for the growth of the boys (and metaphorically have reproductive powers similar to those of women).

It has been much speculation about the couvade innorthern Spain ethnic groups, the Galicians, the Asturian, the Basques and the Cantabrians. We owe it to Strabo, who, it must be remembered, was not a direct witness to these cultures but merely collected the stories of soldiers and merchants Romans under Augustus came from Hispania. There are also descriptions of the couvade among maragatos, Ibiza and Corsicans.

Anyway, in the United States and Europe over the past twenty years, has developed the only institution that has overtones of couvade. Modern men often accompany their pregnant wives when they go to an obstetrician, attend six weeks of preparation for labor with them, and some say they experience back pain and discomfort during pregnancy, many men have heartwarming stories about the feelings they experienced when their children were born.They also support women during labor and increasingly men ask witness the birth. Sometimes cut the umbilical cord and are the first to catch the baby. And what about the automatic imposition of the baby last name first?

They support women physically and mentally, but also provides a place procreation had not previously.

“ABC of anthropologies.” Luis Bucksport. “For rare us. Introduction to Cultural Anthropology.” Paul Bohannan.

