1.
Impoverished women in Bom Jesus say that an ideal family has three children, yet
most poor women undergo somewhere between nine and twelve pregnancies to rear
four to six living children. A question that comes to our minds, as to Nancy Scheper-
Hughes’s mind, is—why do these women have so many children? Why, indeed?
2.
Describe the “maternal philosophy” of the women of Bom Jesus, and the reasons this
philosophy has developed. Pay specific attention to the issue of infant death and
mothers’ complicity in it, and don’t forget infant feeding.
3.
When Scheper-Hughes first published accounts from Bom Jesus of maternal
