COUVADE, a custom amongst several ancient and some existing tribes. According to A pollouius Rhodius, this singular custom prevailed among a people called the Tibareni, at the mouth of the Black Sea.
'In the Tibarenian land, When some good woman bears her lord a babe, 'Tis he is swathed and groaning put to bed; Whilst she arises, tends his baths, and serves Nice possets for her husband in the straw.' Diodorus Siculus mentions that in Corsica tho wife was neglected, and the husband put to bed and treated rui the patient.
Marco Polo, in the 13th century, scorns to have observed the custom in the Chinese province of West Yun-nan amongst the aboriginal tribes of the land, the Miau-tze, who pmctise it to the present day. Tho father of the now-born child, so soon as the mother can leave her couch, gets into bed, and there receives tho congratulations of acquaint ances. And Marco Polo mentions that in the Zar-dandan (gold teeth) tribe on the frontiers of Burma, when a -woman bore a child, she rose and went about her business, and the husband took to bed for forty days, and was fed on possets.
About the beginning of the Christian era, Strabo (iii. 4,17) mentions that among the Iberians of the north of Spain, the women after the birth of a child tend their husbands, putting them to bed instead of going themselves. In the same locality, amongst the modern Basques in Biscay, 31. Michel fouud the same custom prevailing a few years ago. The women, he says, rise immediately after child birth and attend to the duties of the household, while the husband goes to bed, taking the baby with him, and thus receives his neighbours' com pliments. This practice seems to have spread to
France, and to have there received the namo of faire la courade. It has been found in Navarre and on the French side of the Pyrenees.
Amongst the Caribbees of the West Indies, the father is put to bed and fed on meagre diet, and his body punctured and tortured ; and the Abipone husband of S. America is treated like a lying-in woman.
The Yerkala or Yerkal-wanlu dwell in the Telugu districts of the 3fadras Presidency. • Those in the neighbourhood of the Dumagudian practise the Couvade. Directly the woman feels the birth pangs, her husband puts on some of her clothes, places on his forehead the mark which women apply to their foreheads, retires to a room where thero is only a very dim lamp, and lies down on the bed, covering himself up with a cloth. When the child is born, it is washed and placed on the cot beside the father. Asafretida, jagari, and other articlea are then given, not to the mother, but to the father. During the days of ceremonial uncleanness, the man is treated in the manner that on such occasions other Hindus treat their women. Ho is not allowed to leave his bed, but has everything needful brought to him.— Mr. John Cain in Ind. Anti., May 1874 ; Apoll. 1?hod. Argon, ii. p. 1012, in Quarterly Review, July 1868; Midler's Chips, ii. pp. 277-284.