I think that it was determined that in olden time if one survived to age 5, one might live to a ripe old age. My husband’s people were poor farmers in southern Illinois. In the mid 1800’s, one ancestor had 9 children. Five died at the age of 2 in August or September. This was probably the result of weaning and bad sanitation in the hot summer.
I once got an old book which described famous Greeks and Romans 2000 or more years ago. I was amazed to see that the average age of death for the famous Greeks was around 70, but the average age of death for the famous Romans was around 50, and this was after I removed Romans who died of military activity. I think the Greeks had a much healthier life style, diet and enviroment, including no lead in their pipes, if they had pipes.
I’ve looked at my family tree, too. It seems that practically all of my ancestors had large families. You are correct about children. Many, many children never made it past their 5th birthday and barring accidents and wars, if you made it past that magical 5th birthday, you had a decent chance of living to a ripe old age.
I’ve looked at my family tree, too. It seems that practically all of my ancestors had large families. You are correct about children. Many, many children never made it past their 5th birthday and barring accidents and wars, if you made it past that magical 5th birthday, you had a decent chance of living to a ripe old age.
P.S. the “average life expectancy” of 40 years back in the 1800s included a LOT of small children to bring the average way down.
Long-living famous Greeks had their needs met by people who died young slaving away, and that was true for the Romans as well. Augustus ruled for 50 years or so, and his immediate successor lived a long life, as did the fourth emperor, Claudius. Caligula (number three) was assassinated, and Nero (number five) committed suicide when he heard the coup d’etat group was nearing. There really wasn’t much difference in their diet and environment. The lead pipe thing is basically a myth — they had the lead pipes, but it didn’t do much to them, because the water systems the Romans used ran all the time (they didn’t use valves for home plumbing), and like the Greeks, the Romans drank wine more than water. :’)