[LMB] Lois-Bujold Digest, Vol 35, Issue 8

[Jason Long]

Lois,
Considering that my strand of the Pamunkey Davenports has differing DNA from the mainline of the Pamunkey Davenports dating back to something around the early 1800s I'm well aware that people of all eras are human. Even if they don't wish to acknowledge it themselves! Even so I've been surprised at how few premarital pregnancies I've noticed in my DB. And you make a really good point about better nutrition leading to the earlier onset of menarche. That could tend to delay things for all but the best-fed women.

But I did look through another branch of my varied Butler Co., PA relatives and saw nothing to contradict my earlier statement. Not exactly scientific, but a pretty good data point.

I'm wondering if the whole paradigm might be a legacy of the medieval aristocracy's habit of marrying early to secure political and property alliances. Even this has been slightly exaggerated, but if the concept has been generalized to the idea that all of our ancestors tended to marry early because of their shorter life-spans... 

Jason

Message: 5
Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2008 12:16:48 -0700 (PDT)
From: otherlois <otherlois at verizon.net>
 
--- Jason Long <sturmvogel_66 at hotmail.com> wrote:
 
> I'm really not so sure that frontier women married
> as early as seems to be believed. I checked my
> genealogy database for my 1790s western Pennsylvania
> ancestors (as the closest match for the WGW) and
> found no marriage dates have survived unless I want
> to presume that they were married a year before
> their first child. 
 
"Check your assumptions at the door." In at least some
cases those marriages might have been closer to six or
seven months before the birth of the child! I am
basing that on some more recent marriage/birth
pairings I know of in my own (1900s) Western
Pennsylvania family history. (I won't embarrass any of
my relatives who might stumble upon the list archives
by mentioning names, but some of them know some of
that history anyway.)
 
But in support of your idea that marriages were
generally not as early as sometimes believed, there's
also the theory -- I'm not sure there's enough data to
call it fact, but I've seen several reports to this
effect -- that menarche, the time in a young woman's
life when (ahem) her reproductive system becomes ready
to produce children, is earlier nowadays due to better
nutrition (and perhaps hormone-related chemicals in
said nutrition). 
 
 
Lois Fundis "the other Lois" otherlois at yahoo.com or at verizon.net

_________________________________________________________________
More immediate than e-mail? Get instant access with Windows Live Messenger.
http://www.windowslive.com/messenger/overview.html?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_Refresh_instantaccess_042008