Reproducing in cities

History Compass, 2016

Historians have assumed that early modern Europeans did not practice neo-naticide similar to the great Asian civilizations, but sex-ratio studies are only now entering the demographic literature. This article passes in review both published and unpublished research on sex ratios at baptism in Italy, France, England and colonial Acadia, together with juvenile sex ratios drawn from censuses in Germany, France and Italy. Both endemic and conjunctural imbalances appear everywhere, but they could target females or males depending upon the context. It is still considered newsworthy that in much of the world, parents select the sex of their children before bringing a pregnancy to term. In China, the sex ratio at birth is currently 116 males for every female, while in India, the rate is 111, significantly above the well-established biological norm of 105. 1 This sex preference creates well-publicized difficulties for young men seeking brides (The Economist, April 18 2015). Why kill females preferentially? The literature often lays the blame on misogynistic ideologies, suggesting that it would be sufficient to combat them with propaganda in order to eradicate the practice. There are several better reasons: first of all, in agricultural economies requiring strenuous ploughing with large animals and equally strenuous field and forest work far from home, males were better value. In patrilocal societies where husbands, or their families, received a sizeable dowry for the bride (which served as a security cushion for her and her children in the event of the premature death of either spouse), parents were unequal to the task of providing those for several daughters. Finally, if the aim is to keep the future population stable in order not to overstretch resources, then killing future child-bearers is simply more efficient than killing males and females indiscriminately. Today unwanted pregnancies are usually terminated by abortion, but in the past, the safer solution was to kill the newborn or expose it to the elements. Infanticide, like abortion, may be human universals, that is, part of the behavioural repertoire of every known society, although its frequency would vary according to local environmental conditions. 2 Humans are not alone in this behaviour: mothers in many species of mammals will sometimes cull their offspring at birth. In Darwinian language, infanticide, or abortion that has replaced it, are adaptive mechanisms involving some kind of rational decision-making on the part of the parent, which is usually the mother. 3 In most societies, newborns are not considered full-f ledged persons when leaving the womb. Rather, some sort of ceremony confers a name and social identity on them, sometimes providing an additional set of symbolic kin. Returning to the great Asian civilizations where sex-selective behaviour persists, parents enact strategies to better themselves and assess the likelihood of survival and future of the newborn infant. In traditional China and Japan, neonatal infanticide was a kind of post-natal abortion that allowed parents to choose the number, the spacing and the sex of their offspring, while coping better with short-term difficulties like famine. 4 In his compelling recent study on northeastern Japan, Fabian Drixler suggests that one-third of live births ended with infanticide during the 18th century, despite government disapproval of the practice. 5 Historians sometimes

2013

published a book on this subject, Le meraviglie della generazione: Voglie materne, nascite straordinarie e imposture nella storia della cultura e del pensiero medico-secoli XV-XIX, (Mimesis, Milano 2012) [The wonders of generation: maternal cravings, extraordinary births and fraud in the history and culture of medical thought. 15th-18th centuries].

Safe motherhood strategies: a …, 2001

Summary As a matter of fact, the patterns of maternal mortality were very different during the 1870-1937 period in industrialised countries such as USA, England and Wales or Sweden. This chapter analyses the conditions under which the industrialised world has reduced maternal mortality over the last hundred years. Preconditions appear to have been early awareness of the magnitude of the

2000

Migration was a key component of the demographic regime of London in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It is probable that a regular inflow of migrants was required to balance the high urban mortality rates and maintain the population of London until at least the late eighteenth century. While there is strong evidence of high urban mortality in infant mortality

2010

The paper uses a range of sources -parish registers, family histories, bills of mortality, local censuses, marriage licences, apprenticeship indentures, and wills -to document the history of mortality of London in the period 1538-1850. The main conclusions of the research are as follows: 1. Infant and child mortality more than doubled between the sixteenth and the middle of the eighteenth century in both wealthy and non-wealthy families.

A review of evidence on infant mortality derived from the London bills of mortality and parish registers indicates that there were major registration problems throughout the whole of the parish register period. One way of addressing these problems is to carry out reconstitution studies of individual London parishes, but there are a number of problems with reconstitution methodology, including the traffic in corpses between parishes both inside and outside of London and the negligence of clergymen in registering both baptisms and burials. In this paper the triangulation of sources has been employed to measure the adequacy of burial registration, including the comparison of data from bills of mortality, parish registers and probate returns, as well as the use of the same-name technique. This research indicates that between 20 and 40 per cent of burials went unregistered in London during the parish register period.

These notes are simply intended to address a few aspects of the wider context of Mother and Baby Homes in Ireland, in terms of the thinking of the times and in terms of practice in other countries in the 19th and 20th centuries. It is not a uniquely Irish question. Many media comments so far have been based on misperceptions in each of the above perspectives. Knowing how the question of unmarried mothers and non-marital children was dealt with elsewhere does not imply that all was okay in Ireland, but puts it in context. Our problems were by no means peculiar to this country. Where the family of a pregnant unmarried woman did not provide for her, other arrangements developed: foundling hospitals, baby farms, segregation in colonies or homes, and legally enforced sterilisation. (Little attention was paid to the father of the child.) Mother & Baby Homes, like the Magdalene homes, were not so much intended to provide care at a time of need, but rather to bring about reform, a preventative measure to reduce a perceived threat to “respectable” society, and to prevent the women who were perceived as “feebleminded” from giving birth to children who would inherit the feeblemindedness and would be a financial drain on society.

Annales de démographie historique, 2012

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Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 2008

Nigel Leask examines how Romantic writers like Byron, Shelley and De Quincey represented the Orient in poetry and prose, suggesting that they were dogged by anxieties concerning the effects of empire upon metropolitan culture. f35.00 net HB 0 521 41 168 8 284 pp. Cambridge Studies in Romanticism 2 The Cambridge Companion to British Romanticism Edited by STUART CURRAN Eleven original essays make a significant contribution to our understanding of the Romantic period, providing readers with access to the historical roots, intellectual ferment and cultural range of British Romanticism. f35.00 net HB 0 521 33355 5 266 pp. fl1.95net PB 0521 421934 Eighteenth-Century Sensibility and the Novel ANN JESSIE VAN SANT Ann Jessie Van Sant discusses literary representations of suffering and responses to it in the social and scientific context of the period. €27.95 net HB 0 521 40226 3 160 pp. Cambridge Studies in Eighteenth-Century English Literature and Thought 14 Jane Austen and the Body JOH N W I LTS H I RE John Wiltshire shows how important are bodies and faces, illness and health, in the novels of Jane Austen. f30.00 net HB 0 521 41476 8 265 pp.