COUVADE, a custom so called in Beam (literally a "brood ing," from Fr. couver, to hatch), requiring that the father, at and sometimes before the birth of his child, shall retire to bed and fast or abstain from certain kinds of food, receiving the atten tions generally shown to women at their confinements. The exist ence of the custom in ancient classical times is testified to by Apollonius Rhodius, Diodorus (who found it among the Corsi cans), and Strabo (who noticed it among the Spanish Basques, by whom, as well as by the Gascons, it has been said to be observed, though the most recent researches entirely discredit this). Marco Polo relates its observance in Chinese Turkistan. It is found in China, India, Assam, Borneo, Siam, Africa and the Americas. In certain of the Baltic provinces of Russia the husband, on the lying-in of the wife, takes to his bed and groans in mock pain. In East Anglia, a curiously obstinate belief survives (the preva lence of which in earlier times is proved by references to it in Elizabethan drama) that the pregnancy of the woman affects the man, and the young husband who complains of a toothache is assailed by pleasantries as to his wife's condition.
In explanation of the custom, E. B. Tylor traced in it the transition from the matriarchal to the patriarchal system of tribe organization. Thus, the couvade arose in the father's desire to emphasize the bond of blood between himself and his child. In some countries the father has to purchase the child from its mother; and in the Roman ceremony of the husband raising the baby from the floor we may trace the savage idea that the male parent must formally proclaim his acceptance of and responsi bility for the offspring. The explanation of the American Indians, as indeed of many peoples who practise it, is that if the father engaged in any hard or hazardous work, e.g. hunting, or was care less in his diet, the child would suffer and inherit the physical faults and peculiarities of the animals eaten. Obviously as Pro fessor Westermarck shows there is the idea "that there is an intimate relationship" between father and child such that the activities of the father affect the child. Tabus of this nature are found both in matrilineal and in patrilineal groups.