The Conclusion sets out the key findings of the book: that the home was a significant site of communal religious practice for those of all faiths who lived and died in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century London, and that this was particularly true at occasions of childbirth and death. It suggests that domestic religion should not be equated solely with ‘everyday’ or household religion; the home was the setting of both the daily round of prayer as well as significant life events, and their attendant ceremonies, some of which, such as churching or funeral services, it had been largely assumed had taken place only in sites of public worship. It makes the case for what it terms the cyclical permeability of the urban home, demonstrating that connections between the individual household and the religious community it was part of were strengthened at moments of birth and death. This focus reveals the continued vitality of collective religious life into and throughout the eighteenth century, and the relative authority of women both within and beyond their own households.

The Introduction sets out the rationale for focusing on the home as a neglected setting within histories of London’s religious life, as well as the importance of the book’s comparative approach in bringing together the experiences of households belonging to different faiths. It establishes the parameters of the book’s scope: the focus on London in its unique religious diversity, and as a densely populated political centre, and the period 1600–1780 (roughly bookended by the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 and the Gordon Riots of 1780). It sets out the book’s interventions in key areas of scholarship, including its contributions to understandings of London lives and domestic space, complicating understandings of public and private space in the densely populated and diverse City of London. It establishes how it moves beyond existing scholarship on domestic religion, and the relationship between religion and the life cycle, which has tended to focus upon conforming Protestant and almost entirely on Christian experiences. It also surveys the broad range of sources analysed in the book, including letters, diaries, court cases, wills, and material culture.

Harkening to parteras’ voices prompts us to reposition ourselves in relation to literature and literary history by looking to the non-literary, the silences, and the interstices of print culture: court documents, folklore, testimonio, peripheral material within Spanish-language newspapers, second- and third-hand accounts, a birth story told year after year but never written down. In this way, the literature of parteras – and Latinx literature in transition more broadly – reflects the betweenness that would come to be theorized in the late twentieth century by Chicana feminists and Latinx literary recovery projects. Parteras, in their role, are not the ones being born nor the ones giving birth; they guide birth, counseling, positioning, and attending to labor. So, too, can their archival traces attend to the transition of Latinx literature into new forms and new consciousnesses.

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.