and midwives in support, the father was often present in or near the birthing chamber to assert or admit his paternity. David Arnot, a physician serving aristocratic women in the 17th-century, provided talismans of stones and belts for pregnant women. Before the Reformation, baptism was a means of creating wider spiritual kinship with godparents, but in the reformed Kirk godparents were abolished and it was used as a means of strengthening the "natural" relationships with the parents, particularly the father, who would have the primary responsibility for the moral and spiritual education of the child. Young children Following birth it was common, particularly among richer families, to employ a wet-nurse to care for the child, sometimes living in with the family. In late seventeenth century Edinburgh 6.8 per cent of families employed such a nurse and they were most common among wealthier middle-class households. Records show that royal wet-nurses including Isobel Colt and Margaret Masterton were replaced due to fears for infant health. Among the elite of Highland society, there existed a system of fosterage that created similar links to godparenthood, with children being sent to the households of other major families to facilitate the creation of mutual bonds, and which continued into the seventeenth century. Few sources give an insight into the experiences of young children in this period. Some parents played with their children and parents demonstrated grief at their loss. The primary responsibility for bringing up young children fell on the mother. For older children the major duty of parents was, according to the Kirk, to ensure the spiritual development of the child, with fathers leading daily family prayers, but it is not clear how widely these practices were adopted. After the Reformation, first communion probably served as a rite of puberty, marking the transition to sit beside adults at the kirk boards for the first time. Youth Historians debate whether early modern individuals experienced a period of youth in the modern sense. For many the early teens were marked by moving away from home to undertake life-cycle service, which was necessary so that they could build up skills and capital that would enable them to marry and create a separate household. Lowland Scotland was part of the pattern of late marriage for both men and women (between the mid and late 20s), with a relatively large proportion of the population remaining unmarried. In the Highland and