The tendency for men to become broody when women were nearing childbirth has been noted since ancient times. In a Basque custom the husband of a woman at the end of her pregnancy would take to his bed and pretend to be lying-in. Sometimes he would dress in his wife’s clothes and simulate the cries of labour. While in this condition he would be treated with great consideration, forbidden to handle tools or undertake hard work and given the most delicious foods. When the child was born he would nurse it in bed and receive congratulations from relatives and friends.
Marco Polo write of this after observing the people of Zardandan.
“After giving birth the woman gets up and goes about her normal chores while her husband retires to bed for 40 days with the baby by his side. All his relatives come to visit and keep up a great festivity because as they say “the woman had had a hard bout of it and ’tis but fair the man should have his suffering too“
The Huichol Indians had a different technique for dealing with labour pains
During traditional childbirth, the father sits above his labouring wife on the roof of their hut. Ropes are tied around his testicles and his wife holds onto the other ends. Each time she feels a painful contraction, she tugs on the ropes so that her husband will share some of the pain of their child’s entrance into the world.
I can’t imagine many men these days allowing a labouring woman to rope their testicles up. The designers at BenjaminMales have come up with this modern day version but whether it will prove to be any more popular remains to be seen.
gimcrack hospital (PG) 