Fathers and Childbirth in 16th and 17th Century Spain

Delivery, especially since the anthropologist Van Gennep systematized the study of rites of passage, has been subject of attention and debate from different disciplines (anthropology, medical history, sociology, demography, psychology, literature, cultural and social history.), with a special and logical attention to mothers and towards the idea of motherhood. These studies have demonstrated how, in Early Modernity, a female culture was developed around childbirth. This article tries to approach the subject from another perspective, analyzing the presence, participation, attitudes and functions of fathers during the pregnancy, in the childbirth and immediatly after birth, through the testimonies provided, fundamentally, by Spanish moralists and theologians in XVIth and XVIIth, and other historical documents (old chronicles, lawsuits ...).