The comparative constitution of twinship

anthropological and ethnographic perspectives

pp. 12-26

in: Elizabeth A. Stewart, Exploring twins, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2003

Abstract

The birth of twins occurs in all cultures of the world. In most, the appearance of twins itself is a matter of surprise, even shock, both for the parents and the community. In more industrialized societies, due to the intervention of hospital equipment such as scanners, the social construction of twinship often begins as early as the initial diagnosis of the twin pregnancy, continues through maternal strategies of coping with two foetuses as opposed to one, and proceeds within the wider social context once the twins are born (see Chapter 7). In traditional societies the biological reality of twinship produces immediate and socially determined reactions at the time of the birth and more significantly thereafter. Within both types of societies, twinship as a distinctively social phenomenon is clearly constituted within the framework of particular cultural contexts.