Anny,
I'm afraid that the "natural birth control" (i.e. that semi-starved women
are not fertile) is overestimated. In the place I came from (Tajikistan,
in Asia) majority of women (especially in remote villages) have babies as
often as every nine months, since they are married and until the menapause (that
is if they live through it).
First reason is that Muslim religion prohibits birth control. Second, a couple would
not even try to use it,if they do not have a son yet. Girls are not considered worth
anything, so if a family has eight daughters, the woman will still be forced
to have babies until she has a boy. The infant mortality is one of the highest in the
world, so only 7-8 children survive, but that's enough to keep the family
at such poverty level, that the only food they can afford is bread and
tea -- for years. Which does not seem to prevent more pregnancies.
What I am saying, it would probably save a lot of
lives, if women would not have children until they are well-nourished,
but unfortunately, it's not the case. Of course, this is not a scientific
fact, just something I had a chance to witness for the first 20 years of
my life.
Marina
P.S. Another thing - children in that society are considered the best
blessing of ones' life, and the only one (unlike money) available to
everyone. It is important to a point that if a woman cannot have
children, her husband is very likely to kick her out. And people who are not
married (and therefore, cannot have children) are considered having
wasted their life.
On Tue, 15 Jul 1997, Anny Middon wrote:
> In a message dated 97-07-13 07:40:11 EDT, Lesley_Hall@MSN.COM
(Lesley Hall) > writes:
>
> It's my understanding that small families haven't always been a matter of
> choice, either. (My source for this is an educational "tour" kind of thing I
> took in Alice Springs a few years ago; since this is not the most reliable of
> sources, I'd greatly appreciate any corrections.)
>
> In times in which women live in semi-starved condition, they often are not
> fertile. If body weight falls below a certain level. menstruation ceases and
> the woman will not be able to conceive. (I believe this happens to
> anorexics.) In the aboriginal group covered in the tour, in the past it had
> been typical for a woman who married at age 13 (a common age for marriage)
> and lived to post-menopausal years to have only three or four children. And
> of course, not all would live to adulthood.
>
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