Midwives during the time of Jesus
I'm trying to figure out how midwives fit into society in Palestine during the time of Jesus (ie right around 4 BC to 30 AD). I've read Wikipedia articles that looked at all relevant and done several Google searches on variations of "Palestine, midwives, Jesus" and "Roman empire, midwives, Jewish," and the like and I haven't come up with much. I also looked through any semi-pertinent tags here, and didn't find anything.
Basically, this is what I"m looking for:
Did only the wealthy have midwives? (Some of the articles I've read led me to believe this was so. Other say that poorer families also had midwives present at births.)
Who, exactly, were the midwives? Jewish? Roman? What class? (It seems that midwives were highly trained slaves. Is this true? And if so, how does that play into the first question, because poorer families aren't really going to have slaves.)
For that matter, how much intermingling was there between Romans and Jews in terms of who was the midwife and who was having the baby? (I know this is fairly vague and I know that I'm leaving out lots of other classifications of people. The story, though, is really just interested in the Romans and the Jews. I also know that the location is rather vague, and I expect there are differences between Judea and Galilee, etc.--I'm interested in those differences as well.)
Bottom line: Were Jewish women midwives? How were they treated in society? And if not, then who were the midwives for Jewish births?
Thanks a bunch.
Basically, this is what I"m looking for:
Did only the wealthy have midwives? (Some of the articles I've read led me to believe this was so. Other say that poorer families also had midwives present at births.)
Who, exactly, were the midwives? Jewish? Roman? What class? (It seems that midwives were highly trained slaves. Is this true? And if so, how does that play into the first question, because poorer families aren't really going to have slaves.)
For that matter, how much intermingling was there between Romans and Jews in terms of who was the midwife and who was having the baby? (I know this is fairly vague and I know that I'm leaving out lots of other classifications of people. The story, though, is really just interested in the Romans and the Jews. I also know that the location is rather vague, and I expect there are differences between Judea and Galilee, etc.--I'm interested in those differences as well.)
Bottom line: Were Jewish women midwives? How were they treated in society? And if not, then who were the midwives for Jewish births?
Thanks a bunch.