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To: muawiyah
This was a consequence of a male/female ratio imbalance caused by a high maternal death rate. It was common back in the good old days for women to die earlier than men ~ in greater numbers simply from the consequences of childbirth.

To somewhat counterbalance the high female death rate in childbirth, there was also a very high male death rate in accidents (no OSHA back then) and war. Most "indigenous" or "traditional" societies were pretty much constantly at war. While major battles with lots of dead guys killed all at the same time were usually rare, it was not at all uncommon for the constant killing in raids and ambushes to add up to a 20% to 50% death rate for men.

In addition, homicide, mostly of men by men, was MUCH higher in most traditional societies, as in 5x to 20x that of the US today.

From what I've been able to find out, most societies did not have a large preponderance of males over females.

16 posted on 06/18/2011 3:56:34 PM PDT by Sherman Logan
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To: Sherman Logan
You grossly underestimate the female death rate. Back in the good old days women did more of the work than did men. They suffered the greater number of agricultural accidents ~ snakes in the wheatfields, house fires, falling off the roof while applying thatch, etc.

Plus, more women were held as slaves than were men. Some societies, e.g. those in Scandinavia and the Baltics, held all the women as slaves. Women didn't gain any sort of liberties until relatively recently ~ so it shows up in history ~ and in names. Might add that in Scandinavia they actually did something similar to the Iroquois winter walk. That's where the men go away and hunt and fish all winter while the women, children and old people stay at home and live on the surplus saved up in the short summer.

Starting in about the 8th Century the Vikings began just leaving town and making more distant raids. The folks who stayed behind continued to suffer from famine in winter, but in the springtime when the guys came back they had some good stuff to look at. The last famine in Scandinavia occured in the late 1800s, but the last famine in Northern Europe, far to the South, occurred in 1943.

Interestingly enough, women survive famines better than men ~ but in the next generation everybody gets to be a midget proving that nature provides eh!

America in the 1600s and 1700s clearly had a surplus of men over women.

18 posted on 06/18/2011 4:06:51 PM PDT by muawiyah
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