26 Conception, Birth and Infancy in 



chance might decide, the Italian mother has sometimes left with 

 her baby or on it some object which would identify its parentage 

 if a turn of fortune or the prick of conscience eventually inspired 

 the wish for its recovery. So in the home for foundlings, Casa dei 

 Trovatelli, of an Italian city, a token of identity, known only to 

 the person who gave up the infant and the managers of the institu- 

 tion, has, in some instances, led to its restoration. Commonly the 

 identifier is a ribbon of unusual color or a piece of money which has 

 been cut in half. The claimant has only to match the ribbon or 

 the half coin with what she has retained in order to secure her 

 child. 120 The practice of deserting children greatly exercised both 

 pagan and Christian moralists in antiquity, not only for more obvi- 

 ous reasons, but because of the future danger of committing an 

 unwilling incest: a girl grown to womanhood might marry her own 

 brother, a father fornicate in a brothel with his own child. 121 



The preference which the Romans showed for male children and 

 their greater willingness to rid themselves of a girl baby than a boy, 

 if the birth of any offspring was undesired, or if its prospects for a 

 healthy life were poor, is not without parallel in civilized form 

 among many Italians now. A child of the stronger sex bids fair 

 to be an asset, one of the weaker a liability. And so down in the 

 region of Venosia 122 (not to speak of other communities) the wish 

 of felicity takes the form of salute, denari e figli tnaschi, "Health, 

 wealth, and male children" — and Venosia is Venusia, the birthplace 

 of Horace, Rome's poet of worldly wisdom, who, apparently, never 

 married. When a Sicilian bride enters her new house, her friends 

 may call to her cuntintizza e figgi masculi, which is to wish her 

 contentment and boy babies. 123 In Sicily the salutation of good 

 omen for a sneeze may be Salute e un figlio masche, "Health and 

 a male child." Nobody, of course, would sneeze for a female. 



In order to obtain their preference superstitious women may 

 wash themselves and fumigate themselves, using for bath or smoke 

 aromatic herbs that were gathered on the day of San Giovanni, the 

 day of magic, and they drink decoctions of Mercurialis annua, or 

 eat the kidneys of a hare. 124 Some even cherish the comforting 

 belief that the sex of their infant can be determined at any time 

 right up to the moment of its issue. The woman need merely hold 

 in her hand the pestle for salt to bear a boy, a brush or broom to 

 get a girl. 125 Superstitious methods of prognosticating the result 



