Why did every peasant woman dream of working as a WET NURSE in Tsarist Russia?

"Among wealthy merchants, having a wet nurse is considered a sign of good manners, just like owning a piano or good horses," wrote the 1908 ‘Encyclopedia of Family Education and Training’. And long before the merchant class, wet nurses were invited into royal and noble families.

In the high society of the Russian Empire, it was considered good form to entrust a baby to the care of a wet nurse and nanny immediately after birth. The generally accepted explanation was that the woman would not lose her physical shape and could return to active social life soon after childbirth. The pragmatics, however, were far more physiological: breastfeeding prevented further pregnancy. And with infant mortality high, to ensure the continuation of the family line and especially the succession to the throne, a woman had to give birth to the next heir as quickly as possible.

Therefore, for example, when Maria Alexandrovna, Grand Duke Alexander Nikolaevich's wife, gave birth to a daughter in 1842 and expressed a desire to breastfeed her, Emperor Nicholas I categorically forbade her to do so. When Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna, wife of Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich, became the first to breastfeed her child herself following the birth of a son in 1875, this was met with bewilderment in noble society and discussed in drawing rooms as an eccentricity.

While, in the 16th–18th centuries, wet nurses were the wives of boyars with prominent last names and, in the 18th century, they could be the wives of palace servants, in the 19th century, exclusively peasant women served as wet nurses for high-born children. The practice of using peasant wet nurses in the 19th century also acquired an ideological justification. During the famous triad of ‘Orthodoxy, autocracy and nationality’, a peasant wet nurse became responsible for embodying "nationality" – the tsar's connection with his common subjects.

How They Were Selected

To put into context, becoming a wet nurse for a high-ranking infant was more difficult than securing a government position. The selection process began primarily in special "nurseries" – villages where the health and morals of the residents were monitored and where military personnel were avoided. Of dozens of candidates, no more than two or three would make it to the palace.

The criteria were strict: age 20-35, physically healthy, attractive and having given birth within 6-7 weeks. Doctors examined their skin, gum color and whiteness of their teeth. Preference was given to fair-haired women; redheads, meanwhile, were strictly rejected, as they were considered to have a bad character. A calm and cheerful disposition, kindness and "developed mental abilities" were also required. The wet nurse's milk was tested for fat content (it had to be medium) and quantity – a deficiency was grounds for immediate dismissal. The wet nurse's breasts were also examined and weighed by placing them in the palm of the hand.

How They Dressed

The tradition of wet nurses wearing a sarafan and ‘kokoshnik’ headdress arose at the royal court at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. This was not simply a folk costume, but an official uniform, emphasizing the monarch's direct connection with the people. However, the traditional sarafan was made of expensive velvet or damask and the kokoshnik was richly decorated. During the reign of Nicholas I, a wet nurse in folk costume became a living embodiment of the tsar's connection with the people.

How They Served

Once in the palace, a peasant woman changed not only her own life, but also that of her family. On average, she would be in constant care of the infant for a year, sometimes longer, often without the right to see her own children. But this kind of service offered unprecedented lifelong benefits and status. Wet nurses were paid an annual salary by their employer's family, which could reach up to 800 rubles and a lifetime pension of 600 rubles per year. By comparison, a one-time severance payment (of up to 860 rubles) was almost equal to the annual salary of a government agency manager.

They were also given a generous dowry (clothing, fabrics, watches), rather expensive jewelry and regular gifts of money for holidays. The treasury built houses for former royal wet nurses according to special designs. Their families were even exempt from quitrent and taxes and their children were often enrolled in educational institutions at public expense.

A wet nurse's own child became a foster brother or sister to the royal offspring. These ties were maintained for decades. For example, Nicholas I paid allowances to the children of his wet nurse, Efrosinia Yershova, for over 50 years.

What was the influence?

From a wet nurse, the child first heard Russian speech, fairy tales, rhymes and songs. Records of a touching relationship existed between Alexander III and his wet nurse, Ekaterina Luzhnikova. The emperor allowed her to address him as "thou" and scold him for his excesses.

With the demise of this tradition after the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, one of the threads that connected the disparate worlds of one country was severed. As historian Igor Zimin once wrote, a simple peasant woman, while raising a future autocrat, instilled in him what would later be called the enigmatic ‘Russian soul’.