Interesting idea, but I found myself wondering if you can't explain the same effect with the social reality of the time period (18th-19th centuries) that the data came from.
A son wouldn't have been much help around the house for the mother-- pretty much just one more person to feed and clean up after. In contrast, a daughter would have been helping the mother, at a very early age, with all the cooking, cleaning, and so forth. Overwork and stress in turn make you susceptible to disease and according to some shorten your lifespan.
This also makes sense of the younger siblings part of the data. An older brother wouldn't be taking care of any younger siblings, but an older sister would, thus making it likely to be a bit better fed and more healthy.
"Those born after a son were physically slighter, had smaller families and generally had a greater chance of dying from an infectious disease. The effects held up whether the elder brother died in childhood or not, suggesting that the negative outcome is not a result of some direct sibling interaction, such as competition for food, regular beatings or the practice of primogeniture, in which the eldest brother inherits everything."
Even if there isn't any other person to feed and clean up after, there are still negative effects. Social reality of the time will not have helped, of course, but the article argues that there's more than just the stresses of surviving and who lends a helping hand or not.
Posted by
M'thew |
October 12, 2007 1:57 AM
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Heh
No summation of what is behind the link
No summation of the article
Nonsensical headline
Brendan, will you please refrain.
Keep up argh.
Oh, sorry, #3
I missed the super cool inside joke that was mixed in to one of the 27 posts today. Or was it somewhere in the 30 from yesterday.
Plz expln
Interesting idea, but I found myself wondering if you can't explain the same effect with the social reality of the time period (18th-19th centuries) that the data came from.
A son wouldn't have been much help around the house for the mother-- pretty much just one more person to feed and clean up after. In contrast, a daughter would have been helping the mother, at a very early age, with all the cooking, cleaning, and so forth. Overwork and stress in turn make you susceptible to disease and according to some shorten your lifespan.
This also makes sense of the younger siblings part of the data. An older brother wouldn't be taking care of any younger siblings, but an older sister would, thus making it likely to be a bit better fed and more healthy.
No ones fault but your own if you can't keep up with the memes, argh.
@Megan,
"Those born after a son were physically slighter, had smaller families and generally had a greater chance of dying from an infectious disease. The effects held up whether the elder brother died in childhood or not, suggesting that the negative outcome is not a result of some direct sibling interaction, such as competition for food, regular beatings or the practice of primogeniture, in which the eldest brother inherits everything."
Even if there isn't any other person to feed and clean up after, there are still negative effects. Social reality of the time will not have helped, of course, but the article argues that there's more than just the stresses of surviving and who lends a helping hand or not.
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