life expectancy, was Marrying young
Schuyler
Naw, that's a misinterpretation of the data. The issue is age-specific
mortality. So, using the book Ache Life History by Kim Hill and Magdalena
Hurtado a zero year old girl can expect to live to 37.1, while just by
getting through the first year (when there is the greatest risk of death)
the 1 year old girl can expect to live to 41.9 years. And by the age of 12
the life expectancy of a girl has reach 56.5 years. There is a different
life expectancy for girls and boys based somewhat on differential care and
on boys taking greater risks than girls.
In the Wikipedia article linked there is a table listing different life
expectancies at different points in human history, so, for example, in the
Bronze Age the life expectancy is listed as 18. Age at menarche, or first
menstruation, for women without access to the abundance of food that I have
access to, and presumably you do to, is 14 to 18. Which means, if you take
the death age to be 18, they would have a baby and have to hand it off to
some other kid as they died a year or two or three later. Particularly as in
humans there is a period after reaching sexual maturity when you aren't
quite fertile. So, you may be able to menstruate, but many of your periods
won't actually have an egg being dropped.
There is a paper cited (which gives a nice blurred life expectancy in the
table) by Hillard Kaplan (my graduate advisor at UNM) that may or may not
make things clearer. Actually the life table at
http://www.utexas.edu/depts/classics/documents/Life.html , which is cited at
Wikipedia's life expectancy page, lays it out pretty well. You can see that
if you look at life expectancy from age 0 you get a very skewed
understanding of adult age at death.
Schuyler
P.S. As a personal experience, my great Aunt Pearl married at 12 or 13 (I
think 12) to an abusive husband whom she later left. But she lived to be
almost 100. So betting on an early death to marry early didn't pay off for
her.
www.waynforth.blogspot.com
mortality. So, using the book Ache Life History by Kim Hill and Magdalena
Hurtado a zero year old girl can expect to live to 37.1, while just by
getting through the first year (when there is the greatest risk of death)
the 1 year old girl can expect to live to 41.9 years. And by the age of 12
the life expectancy of a girl has reach 56.5 years. There is a different
life expectancy for girls and boys based somewhat on differential care and
on boys taking greater risks than girls.
In the Wikipedia article linked there is a table listing different life
expectancies at different points in human history, so, for example, in the
Bronze Age the life expectancy is listed as 18. Age at menarche, or first
menstruation, for women without access to the abundance of food that I have
access to, and presumably you do to, is 14 to 18. Which means, if you take
the death age to be 18, they would have a baby and have to hand it off to
some other kid as they died a year or two or three later. Particularly as in
humans there is a period after reaching sexual maturity when you aren't
quite fertile. So, you may be able to menstruate, but many of your periods
won't actually have an egg being dropped.
There is a paper cited (which gives a nice blurred life expectancy in the
table) by Hillard Kaplan (my graduate advisor at UNM) that may or may not
make things clearer. Actually the life table at
http://www.utexas.edu/depts/classics/documents/Life.html , which is cited at
Wikipedia's life expectancy page, lays it out pretty well. You can see that
if you look at life expectancy from age 0 you get a very skewed
understanding of adult age at death.
Schuyler
P.S. As a personal experience, my great Aunt Pearl married at 12 or 13 (I
think 12) to an abusive husband whom she later left. But she lived to be
almost 100. So betting on an early death to marry early didn't pay off for
her.
www.waynforth.blogspot.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Nance Confer" <marbleface@...>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, January 24, 2007 1:28 PM
Subject: Re: [unschoolingbasics] Marrying young
> unschoolingbasicsAbout the marrying young thing....it used to be the NORM.
> If we look
> at history, 14 and 15 would not have been considered too young for
> marrying in certain cultures.
>
> **Well, if your life-expectancy is 30, marrying young and having a few
> kids right away makes sense.
>
> http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005140.html
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy#Life_expectancy_over_human_history
>
>
> Nance
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
Nance Confer
Thanks for the clarifications. So marrying young is attributed to ?? Partly to high infant mortality rates? No? Religious/societal restrictions -- girls have to be virgins when married? Pre-marital sex being forbidden? Other??
Nance
life expectancy, was Marrying young
Posted by: "Schuyler" s.waynforth@... schuyler_waynforth
Wed Jan 24, 2007 6:44 am (PST)
Naw, that's a misinterpretation of the data. The issue is age-specific
mortality. So, using the book Ache Life History by Kim Hill and Magdalena
Hurtado a zero year old girl can expect to live to 37.1, while just by
getting through the first year (when there is the greatest risk of death)
the 1 year old girl can expect to live to 41.9 years. And by the age of 12
the life expectancy of a girl has reach 56.5 years.
. . .
Cocking A Snook
A Blog for Thinking Parents
http://cockingasnook.wordpress.com/
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Nance
life expectancy, was Marrying young
Posted by: "Schuyler" s.waynforth@... schuyler_waynforth
Wed Jan 24, 2007 6:44 am (PST)
Naw, that's a misinterpretation of the data. The issue is age-specific
mortality. So, using the book Ache Life History by Kim Hill and Magdalena
Hurtado a zero year old girl can expect to live to 37.1, while just by
getting through the first year (when there is the greatest risk of death)
the 1 year old girl can expect to live to 41.9 years. And by the age of 12
the life expectancy of a girl has reach 56.5 years.
. . .
Cocking A Snook
A Blog for Thinking Parents
http://cockingasnook.wordpress.com/
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Manisha Kher
--- Nance Confer <marbleface@...> wrote:
led to pregnancy and kids. Marriage was/is the
accepted social institution that provided family and
stability to kids.
Manisha
____________________________________________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Everyone is raving about the all-new Yahoo! Mail beta.
http://new.mail.yahoo.com
> Thanks for the clarifications. So marrying young isBefore contraception became commonly available - sex
> attributed to ?? Partly to high infant mortality
> rates? No? Religious/societal restrictions -- girls
> have to be virgins when married? Pre-marital sex
> being forbidden? Other??
> Nance
>
led to pregnancy and kids. Marriage was/is the
accepted social institution that provided family and
stability to kids.
Manisha
____________________________________________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Everyone is raving about the all-new Yahoo! Mail beta.
http://new.mail.yahoo.com
Schuyler
It depends on the population. The Ache, who are a hunter-gatherer population
from Paraguay, don't marry that early. They sort of play around at it for a
little while before settling into a long-term pair bond. I'm talking it over
with David (dh) at the mo' and he is suggesting that pre-pubertal marriage
is a way of men monopolozing an entire female's reproductive career. And I
can think of at least one population, who have really high infant mortality
rates to younger mothers, for whom older women who have already had children
are more sought after than are young women who have never had a baby (the
Hiwi of Venezuala).
Thinking about my Great-Aunt Pearl, who married at 14, living in rural,
western Kansas there may also be something about these frontier child-brides
in an era when more men were moving in than women and so these children were
seen as fair game for these seemingly affluent, or at least morally upright,
men. I know that early age at marriage is often associated with frontiers.
So it is a kind of r-selection reproductive strategy where by having lots of
kids early who can spread out and utilize lots of the resources available is
going to lead to greater genetic representation in future generations than
it would in an environment that was closer to its carrying capacity.
I just found an interesting UK statistics page
(http://www.statistics.gov.uk/STATBASE/xsdataset.asp?More=Y&vlnk=5279&All=Y&B2.x=109&B2.y=19)
listing the mean ages of marriage of women from 1846-2001 by previous
marital status. For all single women in 1846 the mean age at marriage was
24.71 years old. And here's a very short list for the U.S.
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005061.html which has the median age for
women in 1890 at 22.0. So, maybe the perception is different from the
reality? I wanted to find data on the Hutterites, an Anabaptist religious
sect that have really fascinating patterns of marriage and reproduction,
with huge birth cohorts, but they are a relatively closed community, and I
may not be using the right search terms.
There is a lot of stuff out there about age at first marriage. I talked to
my mom tonight and Aunt Pearl got married because she was pregnant.
Apparently my grandpa's family moved to get away from the shame and stigma
as well. So, there's one case.
Schuyler
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, January 25, 2007 2:34 PM
Subject: [unschoolingbasics] life expectancy, was Marrying young
from Paraguay, don't marry that early. They sort of play around at it for a
little while before settling into a long-term pair bond. I'm talking it over
with David (dh) at the mo' and he is suggesting that pre-pubertal marriage
is a way of men monopolozing an entire female's reproductive career. And I
can think of at least one population, who have really high infant mortality
rates to younger mothers, for whom older women who have already had children
are more sought after than are young women who have never had a baby (the
Hiwi of Venezuala).
Thinking about my Great-Aunt Pearl, who married at 14, living in rural,
western Kansas there may also be something about these frontier child-brides
in an era when more men were moving in than women and so these children were
seen as fair game for these seemingly affluent, or at least morally upright,
men. I know that early age at marriage is often associated with frontiers.
So it is a kind of r-selection reproductive strategy where by having lots of
kids early who can spread out and utilize lots of the resources available is
going to lead to greater genetic representation in future generations than
it would in an environment that was closer to its carrying capacity.
I just found an interesting UK statistics page
(http://www.statistics.gov.uk/STATBASE/xsdataset.asp?More=Y&vlnk=5279&All=Y&B2.x=109&B2.y=19)
listing the mean ages of marriage of women from 1846-2001 by previous
marital status. For all single women in 1846 the mean age at marriage was
24.71 years old. And here's a very short list for the U.S.
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005061.html which has the median age for
women in 1890 at 22.0. So, maybe the perception is different from the
reality? I wanted to find data on the Hutterites, an Anabaptist religious
sect that have really fascinating patterns of marriage and reproduction,
with huge birth cohorts, but they are a relatively closed community, and I
may not be using the right search terms.
There is a lot of stuff out there about age at first marriage. I talked to
my mom tonight and Aunt Pearl got married because she was pregnant.
Apparently my grandpa's family moved to get away from the shame and stigma
as well. So, there's one case.
Schuyler
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, January 25, 2007 2:34 PM
Subject: [unschoolingbasics] life expectancy, was Marrying young
> Thanks for the clarifications. So marrying young is attributed to ??
> Partly to high infant mortality rates? No? Religious/societal
> restrictions -- girls have to be virgins when married? Pre-marital sex
> being forbidden? Other??
> Nance
>
> life expectancy, was Marrying young
> Posted by: "Schuyler" s.waynforth@... schuyler_waynforth
> Wed Jan 24, 2007 6:44 am (PST)
> Naw, that's a misinterpretation of the data. The issue is age-specific
> mortality. So, using the book Ache Life History by Kim Hill and Magdalena
> Hurtado a zero year old girl can expect to live to 37.1, while just by
> getting through the first year (when there is the greatest risk of death)
> the 1 year old girl can expect to live to 41.9 years. And by the age of 12
> the life expectancy of a girl has reach 56.5 years.
>
> . . .
>
>
> Cocking A Snook
> A Blog for Thinking Parents
> http://cockingasnook.wordpress.com/
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
Marieke Willis
--- Nance Confer <marbleface@...> wrote:
For other, see my previous post in the "Marrying young" thread.
You could try thinking of the converse: Why *not* marry young in past
centuries? What would be reasons for waiting? The reasons for waiting
nowadays just don't apply as much to back then. The claim that people
change in their 20s just doesn't seem as likely to apply back then as
now, because there wouldn't be reasons for people to change in their
20s back then.
Marieke
____________________________________________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Everyone is raving about the all-new Yahoo! Mail beta.
http://new.mail.yahoo.com
> Thanks for the clarifications. So marrying young is attributed to ??No.
> Partly to high infant mortality rates? No?
> Religious/societalYes. Yes. Yes.
> restrictions -- girls have to be virgins when married? Pre-marital
> sex being forbidden? Other??
> Nance
For other, see my previous post in the "Marrying young" thread.
You could try thinking of the converse: Why *not* marry young in past
centuries? What would be reasons for waiting? The reasons for waiting
nowadays just don't apply as much to back then. The claim that people
change in their 20s just doesn't seem as likely to apply back then as
now, because there wouldn't be reasons for people to change in their
20s back then.
Marieke
____________________________________________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Everyone is raving about the all-new Yahoo! Mail beta.
http://new.mail.yahoo.com
[email protected]
Before contraception became commonly available - sex
led to pregnancy and kids. Marriage was/is the
accepted social institution that provided family and
stability to kids.
Not necessarily. I recommend reading "What is Marriage For?" (cant remember the author.)
The nuclear family is a relatively recent phenomenon in human history. In the middle ages, when the home was the economic center, people sent their children to other families at very young ages, some as young as 5, to apprentice in other households to learn a trade.
I cant remember exactly when marriage was institutionalized with legal documents and religious ceremonies, but it was not that long ago. I''ll have to find that book and quote a few passages if anyone is interested.
Kathryn
-------------- Original message --------------
From: Manisha Kher <m_kher@...>
--- Nance Confer <marbleface@...> wrote:
led to pregnancy and kids. Marriage was/is the
accepted social institution that provided family and
stability to kids.
Manisha
__________________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Everyone is raving about the all-new Yahoo! Mail beta.
http://new.mail.yahoo.com
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
led to pregnancy and kids. Marriage was/is the
accepted social institution that provided family and
stability to kids.
Not necessarily. I recommend reading "What is Marriage For?" (cant remember the author.)
The nuclear family is a relatively recent phenomenon in human history. In the middle ages, when the home was the economic center, people sent their children to other families at very young ages, some as young as 5, to apprentice in other households to learn a trade.
I cant remember exactly when marriage was institutionalized with legal documents and religious ceremonies, but it was not that long ago. I''ll have to find that book and quote a few passages if anyone is interested.
Kathryn
-------------- Original message --------------
From: Manisha Kher <m_kher@...>
--- Nance Confer <marbleface@...> wrote:
> Thanks for the clarifications. So marrying young isBefore contraception became commonly available - sex
> attributed to ?? Partly to high infant mortality
> rates? No? Religious/societal restrictions -- girls
> have to be virgins when married? Pre-marital sex
> being forbidden? Other??
> Nance
>
led to pregnancy and kids. Marriage was/is the
accepted social institution that provided family and
stability to kids.
Manisha
__________________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Everyone is raving about the all-new Yahoo! Mail beta.
http://new.mail.yahoo.com
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Deb Lewis
***Aunt Pearl got married because she was pregnant.
Apparently my grandpa's family moved to get away from the shame and stigma
as well.***
If you could get your young daughter married off you'd have one less mouth
to feed, and if she was of an age where she might become pregnant, better to
get her out of your house before you had to feed yet another young'un.
If you married her off you might benefit as well, gain (some little) social
status, or if he had property, maybe you could hunt there....
There'd be another place you might be welcome for dinner if you didn't have
anything to eat.
Deb Lewis
Apparently my grandpa's family moved to get away from the shame and stigma
as well.***
If you could get your young daughter married off you'd have one less mouth
to feed, and if she was of an age where she might become pregnant, better to
get her out of your house before you had to feed yet another young'un.
If you married her off you might benefit as well, gain (some little) social
status, or if he had property, maybe you could hunt there....
There'd be another place you might be welcome for dinner if you didn't have
anything to eat.
Deb Lewis