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81 " They would start at five in the morning and end around ten at night. No wonder they fell into the pubs and drank themselves silly at the end of it. Boys started in the docks at the age of fifteen, and they were expected to work as hard as any man. "
― Jennifer Worth , The Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times
82 " Early marriage was the norm. There was a high sense of sexual morality, even prudery, amongst the respectable people of the East End. Unmarried partners were virtually unknown, and no girl would ever live with her boyfriend. "
83 " Improvvisamente ebbi un'intuizione fulminante. Il segreto del loro meraviglioso matrimonio mi si rivelò d'un colpo: lei non parlava una parole d'inglese e lui non sapeva una parola di spagnolo. "
84 " Families were large, often very large, and divorce was rare. Intense and violent family rows were common, but husband and wife usually stuck together. Few women went out to work. "
85 " Once the babies started coming, it was impossible: an endless life of child-rearing, cleaning, washing, shopping and cooking would be her lot. I often wondered how these women managed, with a family of up to thirteen or fourteen children in a small house, containing only two or three bedrooms "
86 " The guinea earned by doctors for a delivery was a significant part of their income. The threat of being undercut by trained midwives had to be resisted. "
87 " He who loves knows it. He who loves not, knows it not. I pity him and make him no answer. "
88 " I did not do a vaginal examination, because any such intrusion could risk infection, and, unless absolutely essential, should be avoided. "
89 " How sweet. Old enough to know it all, and young enough to blush. Perfectly charming. "
90 " The fashion, or trend, is reversing slightly today, and the home birth rate is around two per cent. Perhaps this is because hospital delivery presents new and totally unexpected risks for mother and baby, and people are getting wise to this fact. "
91 " Whoever heard of a midwife as a literary heroine? Yet midwifery is the very stuff of drama. Every child is conceived either in love or lust, is born in pain, followed by joy or sometimes remorse. A midwife is in the thick of it, she sees it all. Why then does she remain a shadowy figure, hidden behind the delivery room door? "