Well yes you're mostly right about losing a child. But, > There were established societal and religious ways to deal specifically with the death of a child. T

Well yes you're mostly right about losing a child. But, > There were established societal and religious ways to deal specifically with the death of a child. Think prescribed ceremonies that grant a form of closure and which pretty much all of your friends and neighbors subscribe to. Nothing like this exists today. Still exists today. For one thing, the religions that were around then -- Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, etc -- still exist today. For my wife and I, we had comfort with our Catholic grieving traditions, which are mostly the same as a thousand years ago.