ABSTRACT
The long-established division of labour places men, producers of work and economic gain, in the public arena and women, as mothers, in the domestic circle, responsible for the care of the children. This leads inevitably to the fact that motherhood is seen as a natural or biological condition, thereby disregarding the cultural dimension involved in all human phenomena. This imposed definition, by ignoring all reference to a symbolic system that includes choice or the expression of a wish, destroys femininity as such by reducing it simply to motherhood, as the social mores of the time would have it. But a woman is also aware of something that revives motherhood in her internal world: the way it is represented in her psyche. The mother-to-be, in pregnancy and at delivery, is seen as the unconditional creator of life and as such is inevitably called upon to fulfil this role, considered to be her ultimate goal in life.
