ABSTRACT

It has been claimed that the status of midwives reflects the status of women in society. This chapter does not permit any in-depth exploration of this assertion, but it is worth acknowledging from the outset that the midwives’ struggle for recognition and status within various European countries took place against the backdrop of vigorous efforts to renegotiate the place and role of women in society as a whole.4 The midwife’s professional standing was uneven, just as the level of women’s emancipation and occupational organization was uneven across the different countries of Europe. The last decades of the nineteenth century and the first decades of this saw irreversible social changes for women. Midwives had either actively to engage in this process of change, or, very probably, face extinction.