[201] Even a woman's
intelligence is sometimes heightened by pregnancy, and Tarnier, as quoted
by Vinay, knew many women whose intelligence, habitually somewhat obtuse,
has only risen to the normal level during pregnancy.[202] The pregnant
woman has reached the climax of womanhood; she has attained to that state
toward which the periodically recurring menstrual wave has been drifting
her at regular intervals throughout her sexual life[203]; she has achieved
that function for which her body has been constructed, and her mental and
emotional disposition adapted, through countless ages.
And yet, as we have seen, our ignorance of the changes effected by the
occurrence of this supremely important event--even on the physical
side--still remains profound. Pregnancy, even for us, the critical and
unprejudiced children of a civilized age, still remains, as for the
children of more primitive ages, a mystery. Conception itself is a mystery
for the primitive man, and may be produced by all sorts of subtle ways
apart from sexual connection, even by smelling a flower.[204] The pregnant
woman was surrounded by ceremonies, by reverence and fear, often shut up
in a place apart.[205] Her presence, her exhalations, were of extreme
potency; even in some parts of Europe to-day, as in the Walloon districts
of Belgium, a pregnant woman must not kiss a child for her breath is
dangerous, or urinate on plants for she will kill them.
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