Theos-Talk Archives (October 1999 Message tl00011)

In a message dated 10/3/99 2:32:57 PM Central Daylight Time,
kymsmith@micron.net writes:

> Sources?  Well, as far as marriage serving as an "early death" for women, a
>  simple jaunt through any old cemetery will speak of that.  The number of
>  married women (as noted on the tombstone) will show that the majority of
>  them were under 30.  The tombstones of men, on the other hand, show a much
>  longer life span.
>
I talked to my granddaughter about this.  She is a MD, a feminist, and a
mid-wife OB.  She said there are no strong figures on spousal abuse before
the mid-20th century.  And there are not any strong figures about such things
and families for the more distant past because (1) they didn't have
statistics until 1950 (Pascal started to develop the field) and (2) our
knowledge of the common family is extremely fragmentary.  She also said, in
light of this observation by you, that the tombstones reflect that death by
childbirth is the explanation for the high incidence of women dying before
they are 30 just as the higher number of tombstones found for children
reflect the high mortality rate from disease of children.  To infer wife or
child abuse because most women and children died before men is unwarranted.
She suggests researching it a bit more and/or contact any number of support
groups if you have been a victim.

Grigor