ing. The practice of ritual couvade, manifested so similarly in cultures that were continents and oceans apart, alerted researchers such as Margaret Meade in the South Seas and George Gorer in the Himalayas that something nearly universal had been uncovered. It was remarkable in its intensity, in its thoroughness, and in its ornamental embellishments. It was given the name couvade, for brooding time, for hatching. When the full moon had shown its face thrice and the woman had not purged herself in that time, the New Guinea hunter withdrew from the rest of the tribe. He began to construct his own clothing for the waiting time, earrings of conch because his woman wore conch and a headdress of the feathers of the megapode, because it was said that that bird, which walked so close to the ground, was always nesting. He did not sit by the fires and boast of his prowess, even though it was not ordinarily his nature to downplay his accomplishments. He did not want to bring down upon his family the anger of spirits. He visited with his wife’s family and eschewed his own, even his own mother. Through the fifth month he worked hard gathering food and hunting, and then he ceased going out into the forest to hunt, relying instead upon the gifts of his woman’s people. He put his energies toward building a separate hut for himself, a stone’s throw from the woman’s. He prepared his food and she prepared hers. At night they slept apart, and he neither drank after dark nor chewed the betel nor ate of the soma roots. In the final weeks he took to his bed alone, and prayed and chanted as the spirits roiled inside him, tormenting his parts. The forest night was filled with his cries of lamentation. On the seventh day of his ordeal the woman came to his hut—the first time she had visited him. She handed him her newborn child—a son. He smiled, and pulled the infant to his breast, and gave suck to him, for it was his. For many men, the fact of their partners' pregnancies is the first true mystery to come their way in life. The dilemma of the expectant father today is simply ignorance. For many men, the fact of their partners’ pregnancies is the first true mystery to come their way in life. For once, it is the mother who (to his thinking) operates within the traditional “male” perspective of problem solving. She is the one who has calculated and how notices the cessation of menses; she is the one who consults with outside experts to determine the nature of the situation; and it is she who typically rolls up her sleeves and gets to work planning the project, conducting the research, charting the progress from month one to ten. Amid this whirl of directed and perfectly logical activity, the father’s status shifts abruptly, and the traditional roles played by the sexes do a flip-flop. Suddenly and horribly, it is the man who feels omitted from the excitement of an important project. It is the man who feels he hasn’t enough data at his command with which to make decisions. It is the man who feels helpless and boggled at the prospect of dramatic change in his life while the woman goes her businesslike way adapting. She, carrying conclusive proof of her condition under her belt, is free to perform systems analysis and chart timelines. He, who until this moment was the linear, dispassionate, deductive, problem-solving half of the relationship, is suddenly oscillating in decidedly unmasculine hemi-demi-semiquavers. All of these perceptions are misogynist claptrap, and transparent misogynist claptrap at that. She was never less logical, or practical or acute at so-called male activities than he. But he considered them his domain nonetheless. And now the poor fellow’s world has turned upside-down. His map of the universe has been transformed. The mountain ranges have become seas. The seas have become stone. He’s got a lot of orienting to do. At the heart of this transformation is mystery. To oversimplify, we may say that (from the man’s point of view) pregnancy for woman is process, for man, mystery. And it is mystery as unresolvable and as elusive as any religious enigma. Until now, the inner workings of his partner’s body were no concern of his, because they did not affect him. Now the secret within her body not only affects him dramatically, but is one which cannot simply be whispered into his ear—it is too profound, too resistant to ordinary description. He sees his life as catastrophically collided—much as a planet is struck by a hurtling comet. And yet he cannot see the approaching star. He is asked to accept the good news on faith, and he feels in the dark for the switchthat is his faith, and he cannot find it. 7?achel missed her period the third month of trying, and within a short time the urine tests confirmed our best hopes and worst fears. Sometime in mid-August, we two would become three. It was terrific— I wanted to be a dad—but I was ambivalent; what did fatherhood mean? From day one something was eating at me about becoming a father. I didn’t show it, but it was there, and it bothered me. Getting pregnant was the start of a series of events that taught me more about myself than I ever thought I’d need to know, much of it unpleasant. Before the pregnancy came to term, my Mister Goodguy act would run the gamut of emotions. Anger, guilt, desperation, anxiety, the heebie-jeebies. This may sound awful, but the closest thing in my life to expecting our child was when I was a kid, and my best friend’s dad lay dying of cancer for six months. The same awful sense of time suspended. The same inability, deep down, to believe what was happening. I took Rachel out to dinner the night the test results came in, and she chattered merrily about the excitement in store for us. I kept up my Mister Goodguy act, smiling and suggesting we drink a toast. Oh no, Rachel said, no alcohol for her, not until the baby’s born. But you go right ahead. So there I was on the very first night of expectant fatherhood, drinking alone and just beginning to realize the changes ahead. I even drank an extra one, and claimed I was drinking it on Rachel’s behalf. Couvade is a crisis of faith—the faith a man has in his ability to face the unknown. As the wife increaseth, the husband decreaseth. In his despair, he is at the bottom of the barrel Couvade is a crisis offaith— the faith a man has in his ability toface the unknown. of his manhood. There he gropes for something new in his composition to help him to cope; and what he finds is something very, very old—an ancient technique to help man survive this very normal but very upsetting ordeal. Ancient tools, ancient tricks, ancient masks. What he discovers is that modern man and ancient man, different as buttondown and buckskin, are quite alike in one respect — they both value their security, and are both threatened when their manly armor starts to crack. The cloud of unknowing in which the expectant father drifts can be a torment. A man who cannot bear to be kept in the dark about so important a matter as incipient parenthood will have great difficulty finding peace and minimizing the stress of transition to a new social status. A man who, on the other hand, understands that there is a purpose for this suspension of his traditional “hunterly” practicality and clearheadedness, will be better able to grope toward understanding and adapting. Couvade may be thought of as a sustained, low-grade anxiety attack. This may not be a pleasant way of regarding it, but as such it does have the advantage of having a beginning, middle, and an end. That it does indeed end, and with such a knowable marvel at the end, i.e., a baby, is very good news. The man who understands that couvade is a necessary preparation for the new role of father, a rite of passage or crisis in his development as important in its secondary status as pregnancy itself, can more easily “give himself” to thq couvade, hit bottom sooner, and find himself once again on the surface of his life, this time stronger, clearer, perhaps even wiser. While I was spreading the news with one part of my head, another part still seemed to be in the dark. Periodically I’d ask myself how I felt. Great, I answered. Fantastic, I’d tell myself. Oh God, I finally broke down and admitted—what in the world had I got myself into? I could feel myself shrinking, like the wicked witch in The Wizard of Oz. Day by day I felt increasingly insignificant—whereas a year or so ago I had been Romeo to Rachel’s Juliet, now I was more like Friday to her Crusoe. She was so happy and busy and businesslike, putting all our bureaucratic ducks in a row—sorting out our health insurance and maternity leave benefits, lining up our doctor and midwife, finding a good back-up obstetrician—tasks that all seemed somehow beyond me at the time. I admired her so, but felt so inadequate myself. My main accomplishment was lugging a used airconditioner up two flights and installing it in the bedroom. And when that was over, feeling a sharp twinge about midway up my back. My back Would ache virtually non-stop through the duration of Rachel’s pregnancy. The spectacle of ritual couvade —it was called institutional couvade because it followed a set form which must not be deviated from—was an astonishment to Western eyes, and today still seems foreign, exotic and unimaginably odd. Thus the suggestion that there is some connection between what expectant fathers feel and do today and what this pagan felt and did in the woods of Borneo a half- century ago seems ludicrous and worse, useless. But consider the advantages of our man in the field. Ask what his objectives are as he undergoes his rituals. They are simple, but they are also immense. He wants, first and foremost, that his family be healthy and whole. He does not wish to trade a wife for a child, or vice versa, and in this there is nothing obsolete about him —expectant fathers cite this worry as their number one source of concern during pregnancy. Couvade addressed this concern through ritual. By wearing special clothes and withdrawing from the dangers of cheap society, by abstaining from polluting substances, by “experiencing” trauma of birth itself, he has taken the danger away from the woman and onto himself. In this sense couvade is far from a show of “womanishness”—it is bravery and resourcefulness in the face of the gravest, source of danger—angry spirits. In its truest sense it is heroism. Second, our man wants to express various things that need expressing. He want to state unequivocally the bond that henceforth exists between father and child—a statement that we in the West have struggled over the centuries to make, and have usually failed at. He wants to announce to the world that he accepts his new responsibility and status as father, and that his child, whom he has not seen, is indeed his. This stands in stark contrast to the modern father, who greets the prospective new arrival with large helpings of incredulity and selfdoubt. Third, he wants to get himself through a tortuous season without losing his cool. The time of pregnancy has always been one in which powerful forces are at work, evil spirits within and without a man easily capable of violence, hysteria, hostility, flight. Ritual couvade provides a culturally sanctioned outlet for the father to vent some of his passion. It is an established safety valve for the excess of emotion in the expectant father. He wants, finally, to tell himself certain things—to admit to himself what he is also admitting to his society. Whereas his life before centered on the hunt, on the courtship, on the games and friends, all that must now change and he must accept these changes. Couvade changes the expectant father from the inside out, as well as from the outside in. Once he has successfully performed the recommended tasks of couvade, even the least articulate father-to-be understands the powerful transition he is caught up in, and is better able to move within its currents. Whereas most people think of me as sociable, cheerful and outgoing, a dark and sinister, Darth Vaderish streak was beginning to show. At work I found myself quarreling at the drop of a hat, usually about some perceived slight, but just as often about my new, true field of expertise, obstetrics and gynecology. For some reason I took it upon myself to wage war against the excesses of the medical establishment. My colleagues shook their heads—I was on my way to being the company crank. An angry, misanthropic side of me blossomed. I became very impatient with colleagues reducing me to the least common denominator of EXPECTANT FATHER. Wherever I went, it was, “How’s the mother?” or “When’s that due-date again?” It annoyed me that people should have forgotten I was a human being with diverse interests. I still liked baseball, I still followed the Brewers box scores. My work never suffered, I never missed a meeting. I read novels, not baby books. Why this typecasting? Wasn’t I still me? I felt betrayed by my so-called friends and co-workers, and withdrew further and further into my work. Clinton St. Quarterly—Summer, 1988 13
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