The unofficial social assistance networks of 19th Century midwives
My latest project has taken me deep into the streets and hospitals of 19th century Paris – the Paris of Les Misérables and La Bohème, where poverty and splendour lived side by side. A city of artists, revolutionaries, laundresses, seamstresses and domestic servants, at a time when childbirth was becoming medicalised. And for women who were single, poor and pregnant, it was a city that offered little mercy.
The bureaucratic maze
For an unwed working-class woman, pregnancy often meant instant dismissal. Employers – including those who may well have fathered the child to begin with – wasted no time in firing women the instant their condition became visible. Often their accommodation was linked to their employment, so they would find themselves with no income and no place to live. Those who did live with their partners were often no better off. Drunks, gamblers or some combination of the two would drain any savings, leaving these mothers-to-be in a worse state than if they had no partner at all.
Seeking support from the state was theoretically possible, but the system seemed designed to keep women out. To gain admission to a public assistance hospital or to receive free midwifery, a woman had to prove she had lived in Paris for the previous12 months. This meant tracking down former employers and landlords – a near impossible task for such an unstable sector of society.
Hospitals wouldn’t turn away a woman in active labour; even the toughest bureaucrat recognised that moral quandary. But once the baby was born, the scrutiny began. Officials assessed whether the mother was eligible of assistance. If not, support was withdrawn and she was forbidden from giving up her child for adoption within the city. Instead she was handed a free ticket back to her home village – a one-way journey that solved the city’s problem, but not hers.
Those who were lucky enough to receive help from charitable organisations were often required to demonstrate their willingness to return to the path of morality. As the charities were often funded by churches, this path typically involved religious penance and joining a congregation. Meanwhile, the morality of the men involved – the sperm donors if you will – was never questioned. Nor were they legally obliged to contribute a single franc.
The unofficial safety net woven by midwives
Yet beneath this harsh official system, another network quietly thrived – one built not by institutions, but by midwives.
Midwives in 19th-century Paris occupied a rare social position. They moved fluidly between the drawing rooms of wealthy families and the cramped quarters of the poor. They saw everything: the discreet pregnancies borne from the indiscretions of the elite, the desperate circumstances of coerced servants, and the heartbreak of women promised marriage and handed only shame.
Somewhere between the first prenatal visit and the final postpartum check-up, midwives found the right moment to speak. To mention to a wealthy new mother the plight of a seamstress charmed by her supervisor, only to discover he was married. Or they might describe the domestic servant who had been seduced by the handsome son of her employer and then dismissed without reference.
And in the haze of bonding hormones and new-mother euphoria, many wealthy women responded with generosity. They offered money, clothing, wet-nursing arrangements, or discreet ongoing support – no strings attached, no moral judgement, no bureaucratic hoops.
The quiet redistribution of wealth never appeared in official records, but historians such as Rachel Fuchs, who has written extensively on women and welfare in 19th-century France, suspect it was significant. It was an informal woman-to-woman welfare system. Earlier this month, on May 5th, we marked International Day of the Midwife. It feels fitting to shine a light on this lesser-known aspect of midwifery history. In an era when women had few rights and fewer choices, midwives created an unofficial safety net. It is a reminder that care is not always found in (or the responsibility of) institutions.