Forced Surrogacy
While this reference is made clear in the book and TV show, “the ceremony” is based on the Bible verse Genesis 30: 1-3, which reads, “And she said, Behold my maid Bilhah, go in unto her; and she shall bear upon my knees, that I may also have children by her”.
The Biblical story describes a woman named Rachel, who is one of the polygamous sister-wives to a man named Jacob. Her sister-wife, Leah, has many children, but Rachel has problems conceiving. So she asks her handmaid, Bilah, to conceive a child with her husband in her stead. It works, and Rachel gets to raise the babies, while we never hear from Bilah ever again. We know that polygamy was once a common practice, but we cannot be sure if forced surrogacy was a common practice back then. The fact that it was mentioned in the Bible suggests that it was.
Today, sex and child trafficking is a very real problem in parts of the third world. In some cases, women are paid to sell their babies. Two countries where this is a huge issue are Cambodia and India. In The United States, acting as a surrogate mother is legal, and it can pay mothers $150,000 to $200,000. Unfortunately, in India and Cambodia, women are paid far less money for their babies, which makes it a popular place for foreigners to hire a surrogate. The authorities do not see this as an issue of women in poverty carrying babies in order to survive. In Cambodia, they are treated like criminals and arrested on human trafficking charges.