Surrogacy and Its Ancient History

The focus of BabyMoon Family is to support queer men through surrogacy for starting their own rainbow families. In this sense, the type of surrogacy that BabyMoon Family focuses on is gestational surrogacy. Gestational surrogacy is when the gestational carrier (GC) is separate from the egg donor and so has no genetic link to the child. In traditional surrogacy, the GC is also the egg donor. Before the advent of in vitro fertilization (IVF) and the world’s first ‘test tube baby,’ Louise Brown, on July 25, 1978 (1), gestational surrogacy was not an option. While gestational surrogacy is the preferred method of surrogacy today, traditional surrogacy has evolved in different cultures around the world for thousands of years. In this article, I wanted to look at different cultures and religions and their historic connections to surrogacy.

The Book of Genesis

Sarah leading Hagar to Abraham (2)

The Book of Genesis is a portion of the sacred books of three world religions: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. In this book, there are two examples of traditional surrogacy. The first occurs in Chapter 16 in the sun-filled land of Canaan, where Abraham and Sarah are struggling to conceive. Sarah enlists the help of her maidservant, Hagar, to bear the children for the couple. The child, Ishmael, is the ancestor to the prophet Mohammed, who goes on to found the religion of Islam, connecting Christians, Jewish people, and Muslims through traditional surrogacy (3).

The second example from the Book of Genesis occurs in Chapter 30, when Jacob has a number of children with his wives, as well as their maidservants. Jacob had two wives, Rachel and Leah, and his wives each had maidservants, Bilhah and Zilpah. Bilhah and Zilpah were traditional surrogates for the family, and the children of all four of these women went on to form the Twelve Tribes of Israel (4).

Jacob’s wives, traditional surrogates, and their children (5)

Mesopotamia

From 1894 to 1595 BCE, the area of Mesopotamia, which would include present day Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, Syria and Turkey, was ruled by the Code of Hammurabi. While most recognize Hammurabi’s Code for the punishment of an ‘eye for an eye,’ this legal framework actually normalized traditional surrogacy during this period (6).

Portion of Hammurabi’s Code of Laws (7)

In the Code of Hammurabi, infertile women were allowed by law and custom to provide a surrogate in order to maintain the marriage and provide children for the lineage. In some instances, becoming a traditional surrogate elevated a woman’s place in society, offering some social guarantees that they be provided for by the family, especially if they successfully gave birth to a son (8).

Ancient Rome

Augustus of Primaporta, Roman, 63 BCE — 14 CE (9)

The word ‘surrogate’ comes from the Latin word ‘surrogare,’ which means ‘to put in another’s place,’ or ‘to substitute’ (10). Latin had this word as traditional surrogacy was a recognized practice during this period, and the practice was more of an altruistic gesture from one family to another. For example, a Roman man whose wife was fertile was able to give her temporarily to another man, whose wife was sterile. This practice was sometimes referred to in Latin as ‘ventrem locare’ or ‘abdomen rental’ (11).

Hinduism

Harivamsha and Mahabharata are two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India revered in Hinduism, and there are stories in these texts that describe — or in some ways predict — assisted reproduction technology (ART). A recent scientific journal article coined the term ‘forensic endocrinology’ to describe how these ancient stories anticipated our current reproductive science (12).

In the first example, the precursor to gestational surrogacy is described.

Balarama (13)

Balarama was the son of Vasudeva and Devka. The evil king, Kamsa, was intent upon killing the children of Devaki because of a prophecy that he would die at the hands of her eighth child. The Harivamsha states that Kamsa went on to murder the first six children of the imprisoned Devaki. Vishnu intervened and when Balarama was conceived, his embryo was transferred from Devaki’s womb into the womb of Rohini, Vasudeva’s first wife. In this sense, Rohini becomes the GC for Vasudeva and Devaki, ensuring that Balarama could survive the wrath of Kamsa (14).

In the second example, a process akin to developing embryos into blastocysts prior to implantation is described in the Mahabharata. In current IVF, fertilized eggs, or embryos, are allowed to develop outside the body for up to six days prior to implantation, as this mimics the natural time course of the embryo as it travels down the fallopian tube and into the uterus.

Stages of development from a fertilized egg (embryo) to a blastocyst for implantation (15)

This process was described in the Mahabharata text when Gandhari delivered what is described as a ‘mass’ after two years of pregnancy. (A very long pregnancy, indeed). The Mahabharata states that the mass was found to contain 101 cells. These cells were put in a nutrient medium (of ghee) and grown outside the womb. From these cells, 101 children, with 100 male babies known as Kaurans and one female baby known as Dushala, were developed (12). While the gestational timing, choice of medium, and complete ex-utero development of these children are not terribly accurate, it is a creative and potential prophecy of IVF.

Egyptian Pharaohs

(16)

Traditional surrogacy was a fairly common practice among ancient Egyption pharaohs in order to produce heirs. Amenhotep I, the pharaoh who ruled in the 1600s BCE, enlisted the aid of a surrogate mother to have a child, and she gave birth to the future pharaoh, Thutmose I. Interestingly, while children born from the traditional surrogates were accepted as the lawful offspring of the pharaoh, they could only inherit the throne in the absence of the other, more entitled heirs (17).

It is unfortunate that many of the examples described above occur in the confines of an unequal power dynamic, including maidservants and other less fortunate members of society as surrogates. This historical trend of exploitation is sadly sometimes still present today, and it is something that I commented on in a previous article (ttps://medium.com/@babymoonfamily/chatgpt-wrote-an-article-on-gestational-surrogacy-1131877555e9). However, in countries with well-regulated surrogacy laws, the relationship dynamics between GCs and IPs are very far from what transpired in these ancient civilizations. This relationship is often one that is very profound and built on trust and respect, and GCs often remain connected to the families they help, as mentioned in another BabyMoon Family article (https://medium.com/@babymoonfamily/discussing-the-primal-wound-theory-and-surrogacy-3160686119a6).

In researching this history of surrogacy, it occurred to me that almost all present day, major religions include some mention of this process. Therefore, it is not totally surprising that most of these religions hold a relatively favorable view of IVF and surrogacy, although mostly within the context of a traditional, heterosexual marriage (18). Also, it is interesting that one of the motivations for women to become GCs today is through their own religious beliefs. These women feel it brings them closer to their faith by helping people become parents, and this warmth and generosity extends to male same-sex intended parents as well. Surrogacy, religion, and family are much more intermingled than I had previously thought, and it will be interesting to see how these relationships continue to evolve over time.

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