Women and men contributed substance and socialization to bringing children into being and raising them into their eventual Aztec adult roles. Young men experienced a wider range of sexual activity than did young women, but flexibility in gender roles existed. Aztecs raised their children to work hard and create value, obey the rules for proper behavior, and practice moderation in all areas of family and social life. For both children and adults, transgressions in interpersonal relations, work, or spirituality had harsh repercussions. After having been dedicated to either the calmecac or telpochcalli as infants, all boys and many girls would begin their training to contribute to the war-making capacity, political organization, or ritual life of the altepetl. Marriage was an important stage in the life cycle. This new partnership represented the gender complementarity embedded in family life, expressing the gendered aspect of balance found in daily life across the Aztec world. Respected, even revered, Aztecs, nevertheless, also saw the elderly as decrepit and childlike as they approached death. Despite tensions that could exist among family members, the complementary partnership that marriage represented provided a foundation upon which Aztec ways of living survived, however transformed, after the Spanish arrived.

The chapter collects what may be known of Alexander’s life up until the battle of Chaeronea, for which the source of primary importance is Plutarch’s biography. It attempts to sift what may plausibly regarded as historical from embellishments of various kinds (contemporary and subsequent, propagandist, folkloric or mythologyzing). Particular attention is given to: Alexander’s three birth myths; his education at the hands of Lysimachus of Acarnania, Leonidas of Epirus and Aristotle; Aeschines’ vignette of him as nine-year-old boy; the intriguing traditions bearing upon his horse Bucephalas; his regency during the Byzantine campaign, his foundation of Alexandropolis and his dealings with the Persian ambassadors; his role in the battle at Chaeronea.

When the Riddles of the Exeter Book depict early life in the world, they show a striking lack of interest in birth imagery – rather than focusing on a moment of parturition (like many aenigmata in the Latin tradition), these texts instead present early life as a time of gradual growth, contingent on continued care provided by others. To contextualise these scenes in the Riddles, this chapter considers other Old English poems such as The Fortunes of Men, contemporary embryological thought, prose accounts of the ages of man and the world, and plastic art, including carved scenes of animals nurturing their young on an eleventh-century baptismal font and the depiction of Romulus and Remus on the Franks Casket. In the chapter’s later stages, it stresses another kind of transformation as the riddle-creatures take up a variety of social roles, frequently involving the perpetration, witnessing, and suffering of violence.

After a consideration of the various Buddhist chronologies, Chapter 1 argues that Buddhism derives from a historical figure who lived in north-east India in the fifth century BCE. It then discusses the tradition of the previous lives of the Buddha before proceeding to the main substance of the chapter, drawing on the major traditional biographies of the Buddha – especially the Mahāvastu (first century CE), the Lalitavistara (third–fourth centuries CE), the Buddhacarita (second century CE), the Nidānakathā (second–third centuries CE), the Buddhavamsa (first–second centuries BCE), and the Jātaka tales (500 CE). It covers the stories of the life of the Buddha from his birth to his childhood and youth, his renunciation, and the beginnings of his quest for enlightenment.

Fragmentation and rapid conversion of forested landscapes to farmland and human settlements in Upper Assam, India has led to the isolation of western hoolock gibbon (Hoolock hoolock) families in fragmented patches of village areas. Many families have perished due to resource scarcity and conflict with development; however, the villages of Barekuri area in Upper Assam have retained a substantial number of gibbon families for many years. We monitored the population (nine families) from 2011 to 2017 and present long-term data on social organisation and its dynamics in Barekuri area. We recorded eight births, nine deaths and four dispersals in the population. Five of the nine deaths were due to electrocution that reduced the population size from 29 individuals in nine groups in 2011 (3.22 ± SD 0.67) to 24 in seven groups in 2017 (3.29 ± SD 0.76), with a mean group size of 3.67 ± SD 0.85 which did not differ over the years. Female inter-birth intervals and ages at first reproduction are comparable with those in wild populations. Both males and females took the opportunity to form groups and breed, and male replacement and female surrogacy indicate flexibility in a pair-bond. Our observations thus support a growing knowledge of variability in the social organisation of gibbons.

Why is birth so dangerous, even today, with modern medicine? Through historical anecdote and a contemporary case history we explore this question, discussing the process of birth and what can go wrong. By thinking about who is in control of labour – is it the mother or her fetus? – we think about how a couple might prepare for birth. The challenge posed by birth makes us look to human evolution for answers, and we describe the insight it gives into birth in some low-resource settings around the world. We tackle the question of the rising numbers of caesarean sections around the world and the possible consequences. Although it may be widely believed that a smaller baby would mean a less difficult birth, we go on to explore the risks of being small for the survival of the baby alongside new research revealing how the mother’s body limits the growth of her baby inside the womb. We discuss whether the growth of the fetus is set by the genes which the mother or the father have passed on, mother’s size, or her environment. This leads to how the fetus develops and what controls this, the focus of the next chapter.

Pregnancy-related anxiety and fears of childbirth are very common indeed. This chapter focuses on anxiety about pregnancy and birth. It covers the range of fears that mothers can experience during pregnancy, including the health of your baby, your bond with your baby, what birth will be like, your appearance during pregnancy or after birth, your parenting abilities and / or how life might change after birth. It provides tips to understand why you migtht be feeling particularly anxious at this time, and techniques to tackle the factors that keep anxiety going, so that you can enjoy more of your pregnancy wihtout interference from anxiety.

Before they were grandmothers women were mothers-in-law. Until recently they played a major role in the arrangement of their sons’ marriages. Young brides moved into their families, the start of one of the most toxic family relationships. They looked eagerly for signs of pregnancy. If this did not come about they prayed for one, even taking their daughters-in-law to a shrine of Guanyin, the goddess who ‘sends sons’. Son-preference was embedded. Today her shrine on Putuo Island is one of the major pilgrimage sites in China.

Once a pregnancy was established the grandmother-to-be put the mother-to-be on a strict regime. The older women supervised the birth and the month-long sequestration of the new mother, and fed her special foods to encourage the flow of rich milk. The grandmother took control of the infant, tending to it ceaselessly. Babies were held constantly, and even slept with their grandmothers. The aim was to make the baby happy, placid and adorable.

These traditions have weakened but not disappeared. The dominance of the mother-in-law is weaker – and paternal grandmothers coexist with maternal ones. Baby worship continues.

In the 1870s and 1880s, some of Japan’s leading intellectuals and modernizers discussed human rights, reintroduced the binary difference between male and female, and declared motherhood the core principle of women’s nature. As gender displaced status as the primary system of social and legal classification, women began adopting the language of rights and representing themselves in public. By the beginning of the twentieth century, women forcefully entered and shaped a range of debates. Chapter 2, “Controlling Reproduction and Motherhood,” discusses women’s struggle to both define motherhood for themselves and take control of reproduction – the debate about motherhood being closely tied to the quest for legalizing abortions. Notably, this demand was increasingly at odds with the country’s advancing imperialism, which relied on rapid population growth. The end of the Japanese empire constituted a major rupture within the question of reproductive control, ultimately leading to today’s effects of rapid population decline and the lack of will among the young generation to have babies.

This chapter considers how a liminal lens help inform contemporary discussions surrounding embryos in vitro and beyond using three case studies: 1) the 14-day rule, 2) in vitro gametogenesis, and 3) ectogenesis. The first case study is important as it is the principal manifestation of law’s attempt to reflect ‘special status’ on the embryo, and because it is also an example of legal attempts to deal with embryonic processes. This example is used to examine what the context-based approach developed in this book could bring to contemporary debate about the nature of such a rule, as well as its retention, reduction, or extinction. The second example enables us to consider what the analysis offered in this book says about these relatively new technologies in relation to their regulation, and the key biological and legal thresholds involved. The final case study focuses specifically on partial ectogenesis, a technology which not only introduces new thresholds, but leads us to question our existing understanding of meaningful legal thresholds, most notably birth as the moment in which the foetus/baby attains personhood. By these means, the analysis engages with the entire trajectory of embryonic development as this is driven by scientific possibilities, both current and near future.

This chapter chronologically traces past legal engagement with the human embryo, from the 13th century, to the end of the 20th century. It does so with a view to demonstrating that a historical perspective is required to understand that process is a key facet of law-making in this area. Notable from this legal history is the law’s persistent efforts to engage with the embryo’s uncertain, processual nature. We cannot fully understand our present legal position without understanding the social, moral, and legal context from which it was born. By looking at the past ‘legal embryo,’ we can see how the law has reached today’s ‘legal embryo’.

Jean Golding, born in England in 1939, is one of the United Kingdom’s National Health Service ‘Research Legends’. Trained in Human Genetics and Biometry, she is best known for having planned and directed the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC), initiated with 14,500 pregnant women in the south of England. The aim was to determine the ways in which different aspects of the environment and genetics are associated with child health and development, including criminality. In a comparison with Brazilian children, conduct problems, hyperactivity, and violent crime were found to be more prevalent in Brazil, but the ALSPAC children had more nonviolent crimes. The associations between behavior problems during childhood and criminality were partly explained by perinatal health factors and childhood family environments in both countries.

This chapter analyzes the origins of midwifery as a profession, its governance, and the state’s management of birth.

Review of growth and development process before and after birth. Definition of tissue types, hyperplasia, and hypertrophy. Brain and language development, theory of mind, weaning, motor development, and dental development are covered. The human stages of infant, child, juvenile, adolescent, and adult are defined. Human senescence is described.