Chapter 9 looks to explain the "death without weeping" observed in the reaction to infant death in the Brazilian Northeast. The context of this analysis is the content and meaning of "mother love"; the author looks to show the historical and socioeconomic context of this concept―that is, to show how the way North American and middle-class concepts of "mother love" are suited to those socioeconomic contexts. In doing so, the author forcefully argues against the implicit view that mother love is absent among the mothers of the Alto and Bom Jesus; instead, the author seeks to illustrate how "mother love" may be understood from the folk and cultural practices surrounding infant death, and the circumstances governing women's reproductive lives.

The first stage of this argument examines how attitudes of mothering and child-rearing changed with the decline of infant mortality and fertility. This historical phenomenon, the author charges, allowed women to "invest" more―materially and emotionally―in children they were confident would survive. In contexts where development has not occurred, or has been arrested, a more pragmatic, ostensibly colder ethos emerges, in which women do not bond with children not expected to survive.