Seewalds 37: Yes, Jessa is Pregnant

[singsingsing]

22 minutes ago, MargaretElliott said:

Related: Average age of first marriage in history. A lot of fundies get married young and lots of people liken it to average marriage ages throughout the Victorian era in Europe and America. They idealize it, really. You know the type, "This is how it's always been, it's normal, this is how Christians have married for years" kind of thing. However, in the 19th century, most women got married between 22 and 25, and most men married between 26 and 30. This is pretty normal, if a little on the younger side, even today. Several people I know personally got married at that age or younger. The only reason we think everyone got married at 16 in the past is because that's how young famous people got married - specifically royalty and nobility. Because let's face it, if you were trying to secure an alliance with France, you'd want to make that move as soon as possible. But for the average person, it was not recommended to get married before 21. So that means that the Duggar women, on average, get married younger than on average that proper Victorian women (despite how much conservative Christians seem to idealize that period). So that's your fun fact of the day.

THANK YOU. And I'd like to chime in that this was the case even in the early modern period and the middle ages. Most people were not getting married in their early-mid teens. Full stop. That's not to say none of them were, or that it wasn't much more common than it is today (it was - I can say pretty confidently that more 14-year-olds were getting married in 1419 than in 2019), or that it didn't fluctuate over time, but yeah. Generally the wealthier and more powerful you were, the younger you might marry, because of the need to form alliances, but the wealthy and powerful elite were a small segment of society. Late teens was usually considered a pretty good age for women to start getting married. The rest of society had to work, save money, wait for inheritances, complete apprenticeships, etc. etc.

They were also very much aware that sexual activity and childbearing at too early an age could have very dire consequences. Many of these super young marriages were not consummated until the girl was older. There was also a belief that becoming sexually active at too early an age could be very harmful to the health of boys. Another fun Medieval belief: want to get your wife pregnant? Make sure she orgasms when you have sex.

I also just want to take a moment to highly recommend a book called The Ties That Bound: Peasant Families in Medieval England by Barbara Hanawalt. It's a must-read if you're interested in Medieval England/social history. Most of it is based on coroners' records, and it's fascinating. It dispels a lot of myths about the era, such as some of the ones mentioned above, but also the myth that most people lived in multigenerational households - nuclear family households were actually more common.

Since the sources are legal records, the stories can be quite dramatic. My favourite is the woman who left her dead baby on the doorstep of its deadbeat father. There was another one where a couple of teenagers, a girl and a boy, were walking down a road throwing a knife back and forth to each other (there are quite a few examples of kids being kids and teenagers being teenagers, which also kind of dispels the myth that childhood and young adulthood did not exist before the 19th century). Very sad ones of babies dying in accidents in the home, funny ones about people taking the walls off of houses to break in, and a rather creepy reflection on just how damn dark it would have been at night, and how that would have influenced people's actions and attitudes (I believe there was something about harsher penalties for crimes that were committed at night, but I really need to read it again).

Anyway, that's enough rambling from me!

[Vivi_music]

52 minutes ago, singsingsing said:

THANK YOU. And I'd like to chime in that this was the case even in the early modern period and the middle ages. Most people were not getting married in their early-mid teens. Full stop. That's not to say none of them were, or that it wasn't much more common than it is today (it was - I can say pretty confidently that more 14-year-olds were getting married in 1419 than in 2019), or that it didn't fluctuate over time, but yeah. Generally the wealthier and more powerful you were, the younger you might marry, because of the need to form alliances, but the wealthy and powerful elite were a small segment of society. Late teens was usually considered a pretty good age for women to start getting married. The rest of society had to work, save money, wait for inheritances, complete apprenticeships, etc. etc.

*snips*

 

Anyway, that's enough rambling from me!

I second this THANK YOU! as well.

That is another historical myth that bothers me so much and I am glad it is mentionned.

I had to do a project for Italian modern history class during my B.A about the historical demography of one region. I was really eye opening. The number of young women aged between 16-23 who would work in rich households as domestic was VERY high. They would usually get married around 23-26 years old and them leave the household to settle and have families. It was so common when looking up the demographic records that in my final essay I concluded this was the norm, like a typical lifepath to choose. That was 18th century Italy.

I like those kind of homework, essays or analysis that were very helpful in deconstructing myths about history. That is basically why I studied that field though, because the past is much more fascinating than we think.

[MadameOvary]

This has always bugged me too. Looking at burial records from past centuries it is very clear that they are very much not filled with 40-somethings. 

There is also an element of... something in the way people of the past are seen as a faceless mass of simpletons. It's "us and them", reminds me of racism actually. Sure, we have better healthcare and technological advances now, but it's not like we have somehow reached the pinnacle of human development. As human beings we are pretty much the same as we were a hundred, five hundred, thousand years ago. Same people, different circumstances. 

 

[Kailash]

@singsingsing I’ve put that book on hold at the library. Thanks for recommending it. It sounds facinating!! I can’t wait to get my hands on it.

[allthegoodnamesrgone]

The confusion comes, I think, from the life expectancy of the average person. Because child mortality rates were so high, statistics show that the average life span was around 30 years old, but this accounts for the large number of children who died before age 5, dragging the life expectancy age way down. 

[PlentyOfJesusFishInTheSea]

It's interesting to speculate if high accident rates and childbirth deaths made people act differently (maybe more or less risk-taking and/or more or less religious or superstitious?). There's a BBC series on YouTube about Medieval birth, marriage, and death and they certainly prayed a lot around a birth.

Somewhat related, I had to do a demographics lab in first year biology and went to a Mennonite cemetery with tombstones dating back as far as the 1820s (this is pretty old in southern Ontario). So many baby and child deaths that they didn't always get their own stone. Lots of 20-something dudes dying in accidents presumably but yes, the old people made it to late 60s or beyond. Fun times.

[singsingsing]

2 minutes ago, PlentyOfJesusFishInTheSea said:

Somewhat related, I had to do a demographics lab in first year biology and went to a Mennonite cemetery with tombstones dating back as far as the 1820s (this is pretty old in southern Ontario).

Wow, it is! I did not even know that Mennonites were here that early. Now I feel the need to go and research the history of Mennonites in Ontario...

[church_of_dog]

2 minutes ago, PlentyOfJesusFishInTheSea said:

It's interesting to speculate if high accident rates and childbirth deaths made people act differently (maybe more or less risk-taking and/or more or less religious or superstitious?). There's a BBC series on YouTube about Medieval birth, marriage, and death and they certainly prayed a lot around a birth.

I'm just barging in to the middle of your conversation here, but I'd like to add my own speculation to your own -- that how people felt/reacted to the death rates of their time may have been greatly shaped by what preceded it.  

In other words, a 20% infant mortality rate might feel very different to them if it was an improvement over a 30% rate several decades earlier, than it would to us today if something caused our (presumably, depending on global location) current single-digit percent to increase to 20%.

I guess I'm saying that, in my view, the context of trend would matter more to people's psychology and their related reactions/responses than the pure numbers would.

[WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo?]

16 minutes ago, PlentyOfJesusFishInTheSea said:

...and went to a Mennonite cemetery with tombstones dating back as far as the 1820s (this is pretty old in southern Ontario). So many baby and child deaths that they didn't always get their own stone.

You're reminding me of a modern version of that. 

[Carm_88]

35 minutes ago, PlentyOfJesusFishInTheSea said:

It's interesting to speculate if high accident rates and childbirth deaths made people act differently (maybe more or less risk-taking and/or more or less religious or superstitious?).

I think it depends on the class level of the person as well. The rich could indeed pray more and be more superstitious around pregnancy where the poor could not. Women in higher classes went into confinement and awaited the blessed event. The average woman wouldn't have that.

I think my view on mortality rates are skewed because I live by the sea. People in my family tree, either lived to be very old (98 is my most impressive after pushing out no less than 11 children) or died young. My grandfather had so many tales of "The father was lost at sea, they were split up because the mother couldn't keep them" or "His mother died of pneumonia after having him. The dad remarried." I do think a lot of that is due to where I am from and the fact that for a long time, we were very away from the world and behind the times. 

I think the saddest section of the graveyard where I grew up is a section dedicated to the children of one particular couple. They had 8 children, I think, I'm not certain at the moment I am having trouble counting the headstones in my memory. The amount does not truly matter, but it was a big family. The mother sent her children out berry picking. I think there were two not there, the eldest son and a young child who was sickly. They went out early in the morning, the Mother did not start to worry until it was past suppertime and she and her husband went to look for their children. They found them all on the marsh dead, they had eaten poisoned berries and were too sick to make it back.  The younger child died some months later, sad but expected, but the saddest part was getting a letter about their oldest son, who had slipped on an icy deck. He had fallen overboard. After having such a large and healthy family, they had no one. 

The graveyards here are not filled with young people, but there are many. Not all young children either, but many are. 

[Glasgowghirl]

The mortality rates were definitely low due to infant mortality and outbreaks of diseases, such as cholera, dysentry and typhoid could wipe out huge numbers of people in one go, especially poor people in crampt conditions but most people did still live into their 50s or 60s. 

[PlentyOfJesusFishInTheSea]

1 hour ago, singsingsing said:

Wow, it is! I did not even know that Mennonites were here that early. Now I feel the need to go and research the history of Mennonites in Ontario... 

The Kitchener area was settled in the 1820s and on. Not too many tombstones from right around then but you can find the odd one. Many birth years in the late 1700s (people who immigrated from Pennsylvania) - pretty cool!

ETA: Whoops, apparently the first Mennonites to the Kitchener area came in 1806 - earlier than I thought! The Joseph Schneider Haus (c. 1820) is pretty cool for people who like small, local museums.

http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/schneider_joseph_7E.html

[DundeeUnFundie]

I agree that a big part of it is class.
Most of what I know about medieval societies comes from royal biographies. They tend to be the people who history recorded and so thats why we think people got married so young: because we know that the nobility/royalty would betroth/proxy marry their children off in their teenage years. That wasn't typical of the society at the time but we assume that it was (around Tudor times at least).
Neither was the diet or medical records accurate for the society. The regular peasant couldn't afford meat at every meal, nor leeches to suck out the illness. There are many reports of a sick sovereign that was caused or inflated by their diet and the treatments of the royal physicians.

[HereticHick]

Not to derail this mortality train.... but I was at a family reunion in an uncle's house this weekend, and spotted a 6-volume set of Spurgeon's sermons in a bookshelf. : O

[AmazonGrace]

Just saw that Jessa is pregnant and now I have an earworm: 

Baby snark do do do do do do

Mommy snark do do do do do

Daddy snark do do do do do do

[allthegoodnamesrgone]

8 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

Just saw that Jessa is pregnant and now I have an earworm: 

Baby snark do do do do do do

Mommy snark do do do do do

Daddy snark do do do do do do

I so want to give you the FUCK YOU vote!   

[nst]

5 hours ago, HereticHick said:

Not to derail this mortality train.... but I was at a family reunion in an uncle's house this weekend, and spotted a 6-volume set of Spurgeon's sermons in a bookshelf. : O

you should have taken a picture and posted it 

[libgirl2]

On 1/14/2019 at 2:17 PM, DundeeUnFundie said:

I agree that a big part of it is class.
Most of what I know about medieval societies comes from royal biographies. They tend to be the people who history recorded and so thats why we think people got married so young: because we know that the nobility/royalty would betroth/proxy marry their children off in their teenage years. That wasn't typical of the society at the time but we assume that it was (around Tudor times at least).
Neither was the diet or medical records accurate for the society. The regular peasant couldn't afford meat at every meal, nor leeches to suck out the illness. There are many reports of a sick sovereign that was caused or inflated by their diet and the treatments of the royal physicians.

I remember reading something about the peasant had the better diet. Those with money ate a diet of mostly meat and white bread (which was considered higher quality), while the peasant ate coarser whole meal bread and more veggies. Not sure if it meant they lived longer though. Times were tough. 

[SorenaJ]

Jessa just posted on instagram that she was annoyed getting crumbs out of cracks in the table - she needs to get an oilcloth. Especially with two little kids. Get an oilcloth. 

[Knight of Ni]

17 hours ago, SorenaJ said:

Jessa just posted on instagram that she was annoyed getting crumbs out of cracks in the table - she needs to get an oilcloth. Especially with two little kids. Get an oilcloth. 

Please tell me more. The crumbs in the cracks of my kitchen table are driving me insane. I’m at the point of scraping them out with a toothpick but I really don’t have that kind of time. 

[SorenaJ]

28 minutes ago, Knight of Ni said:

Please tell me more. The crumbs in the cracks of my kitchen table are driving me insane. I’m at the point of scraping them out with a toothpick but I really don’t have that kind of time. 

Oilcloths are really good because they are waterproof and stain resistant, so anything that gets on the cloth you just wipe right off. Crumbs, spillages. Also good to not damage the table too much. If you have a pretty table, you can get a transparent colourless one, so you can still see the table. 

Things to look out for: Phthalates, PVC, flour and stuff like that, but I am sure that goes for a lot of things. There is laminated cotton cloths which are PVC free. 

Here are some links: 
http://txtlart.com/oilcloth.html
https://messy-me.com/about-us/our-oil-cloth/
https://www.mendels.com/Oilcloth/
https://impwearhome.com/pages/our-fabrics

 

[Blessings of the Corn]

RE: R. Kelly documentary

"I Survived R. Kelly" can be found on the dailymotion website if you don't have access to cable. I watched it last Friday. I am sickened. I knew some things about him, such as Aliyah and the infamous tape, but I hadn't followed closely at all.

It is a VERY disturbing documentary and he has continued his actions to this very day. As of today he has young women basically held in his home like prisoners. He is a sick and disturbed individual and I am sorely disappointed by those in the music profession who aren't shouting out against him. John Legend is the only famous musician of note that is on the documentary.

[StraightOuttaArkansas]

My diaper bag is made of oilcloth. I had not heard of it before and just liked the print. Now that I have been using it for a while I am in love. I never have to worry about rain on it and it wipes clean so easy so I never worry that it is dirty if I had to set it on the ground. Absolutely recommend it for diaper bags. I had no idea you could get tablecloths made of it though! Off to check out the links @SorenaJ shared!

[MathQueen]

Oilcloth is a great way to protect surfaces. It’s super thick and sturdy. Most oilcloth fabric used today has a vinyl surface with a flannel-like surface underneath. It can be found at larger fabric stores for purchase by the yard. If I’m remembering correctly, it doesn’t need finished edges to keep from fraying. You can cut it right from the bolt to fit the size you need. So covering tables is easy. You can also sew pieces together to make protective covers.

[allthegoodnamesrgone]

Thanks FJ I was today years old when I learned that there is such a thing as oilcloth.   Am I the only one who has ever heard of this?