The Story of Hanna: The Ambivalence of Motherhood

The writer of 1 Samuel describes Hannah, wife of Elkanah and eventual mother of the prophet Samuel, as wretched because she had long been childless.  But Hannah herself does not lament her failure to bear children.  The writer gives her several speeches, including her famous one to Eli denying being drunk, yet none of those statements mention sorrow over not having children.  Instead, we read only that Hannah weeps because Peninah, Elkanah's other wife, torments her.  Peninah, of course, has borne children as befits a proper biblical wife, yet Elkanah loves Hannah more and Peninah knows it. She takes out her resentment in the obvious way, deriding Hannah's infertility and by implication, her worth as a woman.  So is Hannah truly unhappy because she is childless or only because she is worn down by Peninah's nastiness?  Perhaps Hannah prays for a child in part to remove her rival's only weapon against her.  It is telling that in her prayer she promises to give her child to the priesthood, to be separated from her all his life after only a few years of nurturing.  If she longed for motherhood, would she not have wanted to keep her child with her, to watch him grow up and remain close by?  Hannah may be the earliest example of ambivalence toward motherhood.