ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores the punishments for bastard-bearing, the impact of those punishments and the question as to what became of unmarried mothers. It examines marriage through the lens of the marriage service, whose words constructed a complex interplay of symmetry and asymmetry between the undertakings of the bride and groom. The central concern of Ralph Josselin's diary, was to record God's transactions with Josselin's own world his family, his farm, his parishioners, his community, his country; and childbirth came into focus within the diary to the extent that it illuminated that concern. The book suggests that constituted not just resistance but counter-power, the 'ceremony of childbirth'; nevertheless, women's collective interest could be in tension with the individual interest of a particular mother, just as the collective interest of men could run against that of an individual husband.
