Introduction

Modern Maternities aims to address an excitingly wide range of issues connected with the underexplored topic of medical advice about breastfeeding in colonial Calcutta. Social milieus include memsahibs (European women) and dais (Indian wet nurses and/or midwives) as well as the ‘respectable’ Bengali-Hindu bhadramahila as the problematic ‘immature’ child-mother and the ‘ideal’ goddess-like figure of the ‘mature’ mother. While the topics covered are diverse, at the same time, these are thematically interconnected throughout. Breastfeeding is studied as having been constituted by ‘race’, gender, community, class and caste-ridden, biocultural ‘pure’/‘polluting’ traits often considered transmittable through milk and blood.