Girls historically imagined pregnancy as caused by eating certain foods

Evidence

Constipation, diarrhea, and expulsion tendencies always express the same mixture of desire and anguish; the result is sometimes a miscarriage: almost all spontaneous miscarriages have a psychic origin. The more importance woman gives these malaises and the more she coddles herself, the more intense they are. In particular, pregnant women’s famous “cravings” are indulgently nurtured infantile obsessions: they are always focused on food, and have to do with the old idea of fertilization by food; feeling distressed in her body, woman expresses, as often happens in psychasthenies, this feeling of strangeness through a desire that fascinates her. There is moreover a “culture,” a tradition, of these cravings as there once was a culture of hysteria; woman expects to have these cravings, she waits for them, she invents them for herself. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1457 (#expands, via linked claim)

For the Bhantas of India, or in Uganda, a sterile woman is considered dangerous for gardens. In Nicobar, it is believed that the harvest will be better if it is brought in by a pregnant woman. In Borneo, seeds are chosen and preserved by women. “One seems to feel in women a natural affinity with the seeds that are said by the women to be in a state of pregnancy. Sometimes women will spend the night in the rice fields during its growth period” (Hose and MacDougall). — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 173 (#qualifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Pregnant women’s cravings are culturally cultivated rather than biologically driven — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1457; Sixteenth-century authors explained monstrous births by mothers’ regard for images during conception; Pre-agricultural societies attributed to women a mystical power over fertility and crops — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 173 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Sixteenth-century authors explained monstrous births by mothers’ regard for images during conception #exemplifies (0.80)
• Pregnant women’s cravings are culturally cultivated rather than biologically driven #expands (0.78) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1457
• Pre-agricultural societies attributed to women a mystical power over fertility and crops #qualifies (0.72) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 173