Religious rituals and secular rituals: interpenetrating models of childbirth in a modern, Israeli context

Sociology of Religion, Spring, 1993 by Susan Starr Sered

These models interpenetrate in the experiences of individual women, and many of the women used rituals reflecting all three models. Even the most ardent natural childbirth believers had chosen to give birth at the hospital rather than at home, thus expressing their faith in modern medicine's usefulness, in the words of several informants, "in case something goes wrong." The religious-folk model is especially easily assimilated to both the medical and the natural childbirth models: If God has decreed that there will be problems, neither modern medicine nor self-help will be of any use. For many women, the role of religious rituals is to beg God to grant that secular rituals and modern medicine will be efficacious. Turner's claim that, "Only among those least influenced by technological change is ritual able to maintain its function" (1968:23) does not hold true for the women of this study.

THREE WOMEN

The interpenetration and ritual manifestations of the three models of fertility and childbirth take a seemingly endless variety of forms, with precise "ritual packages" being rather idiosyncratic. Age, number of previous children, number of years of education, and obstetrical history had no clear correlation with the level of religious ritual activity reported by the women. Religious self-identification and ethnic background, on the other hand, were well correlated with religious activity. Ultra-orthodox women and women of North African and Asian origin tended to perform many religious rituals, secular women and women of European origin tended to perform few religious rituals, and most other women fell somewhere in the middle. In the following pages I briefly present three women of similar ethnic and religious backgrounds.(4) All reported using a mixture of religious and secular rituals during pregnancy and childbirth. Yet each reported a different constellation of ritual choices. Particularly noteworthy is that all of these women had received modern, secular educations, yet all reported having performed religious rituals.

Shoshana, 29 years old and born in America, is an art therapist married to an Israeli man from a Moroccan family. She describes herself as liberal-religious. She had a cesarian section because of a breach birth. She has had five miscarriages in the past, and this is her first baby. To safeguard the fetus she exercised, repeated the words "healthy, happy, bright and beautiful," rubbed her stomach, and ate well. She learned about nutrition during pregnancy from a macrobiotic friend. The attendant at her local ritual bath suggested that she visit an Indian rabbi who is an expert in fertility. This rabbi repaired the mezuzot (ritual object) of her house, gave her food that he had blessed, and gave her an amulet. She stresses that her Moroccan in-laws did not tell her any "old wives' tales." The Indian rabbi told her to recite a special prayer when the epidural anesthesia was put in. While she was in the hospital a Lubovitch Hassidic woman came to the hospital selling letters in a Torah scroll, and Shoshana bought one. "This is not something I would have thought to do on my own." She plans to put in the crib at home stuffed animals, but no amulets.