3 ms·

"in the decades after the Great Famine... as much as a third of Irishmen and a fourth of Irishwomen never married due to chronic economic problems that discoura

by lainga 8y ago

"in the decades after the Great Famine... as much as a third of Irishmen and a fourth of Irishwomen never married due to chronic economic problems that discouraged early marriage." That is by most peoples' expectations widespread, up to some allowance for out-of-wedlock births (which the Catholic Church in Ireland famously acted forcefully against).

saagarjha 8y ago
There's a difference between unmarried and celibate.
- barry-cotter 8y ago
  Not before widespread birth control there isn’t. We can see quite clearly the first hints of the demographic transition in France. It starts off with delaying marriage but fertility within marriage basically being an increasing function of time. People had sex and this made babies. But then people stop having so many children. The pull out method was invented or spread society wide for the first time. Our knowledge of biology is not innate. The Romans got the fertile and infertile phases of the menstrual cycle exactly wrong. There are Amazonian peoples who believe in partible paternity so if a women has sex while pregnant a child can have more than one father. Whores in medieval England thought fast sex was non-procreative. Historically if you weren’t celibate there was going to be a baby.
  - flukus 8y ago
    Even in the relatively abundant west world today 70% of infertility may be caused by diet (https://www.healthstatus.com/health_blog/ovulation-2/diet-and-lifestyle-can-affect-your-fertility/ https://www.healthstatus.com/health_blog/ovulation-2/diet-an...). In the past poor people had even worse diets, it was probably even worse for the post famine Irish you used as an example. > Our knowledge of biology is not innate It's not,but we've known what the result of "seeding a woman" has been for several thousand years so I have a hard time believing it took that long to come up with the pull out method. For the poor bedrooms are also a recent invention, they probably got a lot more sex-ed passed down directly.
  - watwut 8y ago
    Read up on prostitution in the past.

by lainga 8y ago

saagarjha 8y ago

There's a difference between unmarried and celibate.

barry-cotter 8y ago
Not before widespread birth control there isn’t. We can see quite clearly the first hints of the demographic transition in France. It starts off with delaying marriage but fertility within marriage basically being an increasing function of time. People had sex and this made babies. But then people stop having so many children. The pull out method was invented or spread society wide for the first time. Our knowledge of biology is not innate. The Romans got the fertile and infertile phases of the menstrual cycle exactly wrong. There are Amazonian peoples who believe in partible paternity so if a women has sex while pregnant a child can have more than one father. Whores in medieval England thought fast sex was non-procreative. Historically if you weren’t celibate there was going to be a baby.
- flukus 8y ago
  Even in the relatively abundant west world today 70% of infertility may be caused by diet (https://www.healthstatus.com/health_blog/ovulation-2/diet-and-lifestyle-can-affect-your-fertility/ https://www.healthstatus.com/health_blog/ovulation-2/diet-an...). In the past poor people had even worse diets, it was probably even worse for the post famine Irish you used as an example. > Our knowledge of biology is not innate It's not,but we've known what the result of "seeding a woman" has been for several thousand years so I have a hard time believing it took that long to come up with the pull out method. For the poor bedrooms are also a recent invention, they probably got a lot more sex-ed passed down directly.
- watwut 8y ago
  Read up on prostitution in the past.