Daily Talk
A divorced woman cannot be compelled to nurse her baby, and she may hand him to his father. But once the child recognizes her, the Rambam rules, he is not taken from her, even if he is blind. What does a baby who has never seen his mother's face actually know, and why does the law bend around it?
Even If the Child Is Blind
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About This Talk
Chapter 21 sets out the labor a wife performs, ruling that everything follows the custom of the country, that where there is no custom she may be required only to spin wool and not flax because flax damages the mouth and lips, that her surplus belongs to her husband, and that even a very wealthy woman with many maids may not sit idle because idleness leads to lewdness, so that a husband who vows she may do no work at all must divorce her and pay her ketubah, while her obligation shrinks as his wealth grows. It distinguishes five tasks every wife performs herself, even with several maids, spinning, washing his face, hands and feet, pouring his drink, making his bed and attending to his requests, from six that depend on the household, grinding, baking under Ezra's ordinance so that bread is ready for the poor, cooking, laundry, nursing and straw for his riding animal, of which one maid removes four and two maids remove the rest. It moves the intimate tasks half a step away while she is a niddah, frees her from liability for dishes broken in her work as an enactment for peace in the home, records the ruling that a refusing wife may be compelled, over which the Raavad objects, and gives a nursing mother lighter work, richer food and the right to eat what she craves at her own expense because her physical pain takes priority. It then turns to the children, ruling that a mother of twins nurses only one, that a husband may prevent her from nursing another woman's child, that a vow not to nurse does not release her before twenty four months while her wish to nurse overrides his concern for her beauty, that a poor woman who married a rich man is not required to nurse because her standing rises with his and does not descend, and that a divorced woman cannot be compelled to nurse unless the child already recognizes her, even if he is blind, in which case she nurses for a wage, before closing with custody, a son with his mother until six at his father's expense and a daughter with her mother forever, supported as charity and, after the father's death, from his estate.