Tuesday, February 22, 2005
A Very Brief History of Childhood
In the Middle Ages, boys could wed at age 14, girls at 12, without the consent of their parents. By the time of the Protestand Reformation this had changed and children had to seek the permission of their parents. However, as in the story of Romeo and Juliet, young people sometimes went against their parents' wishes. Before you assume that marrying so young was tremendous, it is well to keep in mind that kids that age were usually on their own, supporting themselves and establishing households.
Children began working around the age of seven. Their chores were often on the farm or in the family home. Most children left home about age 12. They might be come apprentices, domestic servants, or farmhands. During the Industrial Revolution children entered factories and worked as long as 12 hours a day. Child labor laws only began in the West in the late 1800s.
Many children never survived the first year of life. In France in the eighteenth century, the mortality rate before the age of one was 16-18% and fifty to sixty-six per cent of those children that were farmed out to wet-nurses, died. Smallpox, cholera, yellow fever, and host of diseases claimed small children in disturbing numbers. The life expectancy for everyone in 1776 was only 35 years.
Sad to say, many parents abandoned children in bad times. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the French intellectual who pioneered a more tender view of children, left all five of his children in foundling homes. In the mid-nineteenth century one-half of the babies born in Vienna and one-third in Milan and Florence were put in foundling homes.
Aren't you glad you live in twenty-first century America?
Children began working around the age of seven. Their chores were often on the farm or in the family home. Most children left home about age 12. They might be come apprentices, domestic servants, or farmhands. During the Industrial Revolution children entered factories and worked as long as 12 hours a day. Child labor laws only began in the West in the late 1800s.
Many children never survived the first year of life. In France in the eighteenth century, the mortality rate before the age of one was 16-18% and fifty to sixty-six per cent of those children that were farmed out to wet-nurses, died. Smallpox, cholera, yellow fever, and host of diseases claimed small children in disturbing numbers. The life expectancy for everyone in 1776 was only 35 years.
Sad to say, many parents abandoned children in bad times. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the French intellectual who pioneered a more tender view of children, left all five of his children in foundling homes. In the mid-nineteenth century one-half of the babies born in Vienna and one-third in Milan and Florence were put in foundling homes.
Aren't you glad you live in twenty-first century America?
