Note 2 — The Cycle of Life
Reading edition
The importance of gratifying the longings of pregnant women appears in the legends of the Malay Peninsula. See Wilkinson, Malay Beliefs, p. 46 (London, 1906). Hildebrandt states that the Indian law books such as Yājñavalkya (III, 79) make it a duty to fulfill the wishes of a woman at this time, since otherwise the embryo would be exposed to injury. Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics, Vol. II, p. 650.