Fertility in women is the basis of the fecundity of a nation, of its
growth, its power, and its importance. It is especially the fertility of
married women which enters here into consideration, and forms the source
of the statistical data of fertility; these are usually obtained by
drawing a ratio between the number of marriages contracted in a given
period, and the number of children born in the same period.
The fertility of women is a function beginning at an age varying in
dependence on many conditions, and undergoing extinction at a definite
period of life. It is, in fact, associated with the duration of the
sexual life of woman, and, generally speaking, extends from the
sixteenth to the fiftieth year of life. Climate, race, constitution, and
morbid conditions, influence alike the first appearance of menstruation
and the first pregnancy; and as they influence the duration of menstrual
activity, so also do they influence the duration of fertility.
In the Bible are recorded numerous instances of the early commencement
of fertility. At the present time also, in warm climates we meet with
many examples of early motherhood. From the great work of
_Ploss-Bartels_, from which we have already frequently quoted, we
extract and summarize the following ethnographical details. Among the
wives of the Bosjesman, mothers aged ten are frequently seen; travellers
in New Zealand often saw mothers of eleven years, and mothers of the
same age among the Samoyedes and in Palestine; mothers of twelve in
British Guiana, in Jamaica, among the Schangallas, at Shiraz in Persia,
among the Copts in Egypt; mothers aged thirteen in Cuba, among the Sioux
and the Dakotas, and in New Caledonia; mothers aged fourteen among the
Negroes of Gaboon.
According to the observations of Robertson, of sixty-five Indian women
there gave birth for the first time:
At the age of 10 years 1
At the age of 11 years 4
At the age of 12 years 11
At the age of 13 years 11
At the age of 14 years 18
At the age of 15 years 12
At the age of 16 years 7
At the age of 17 years 1
Moreover, in the records of European countries, we find numerous
instances of very early motherhood. _Molitor’s_ case, a girl nine years
old giving birth to a vesicular mole with an embryo; _von Haller’s_
case, pregnancy in the ninth year of life; _Carus’_ case, pregnancy at
the age of eight. _Caspar_ saw a girl in Berlin who became pregnant at
the age of twelve, and was delivered of a living child. _Rüttel_ saw a
girl nine years of age pregnant. _King_ attended the confinement of a
girl who at the time of her delivery was not yet eleven years old.
_Taylor_ reports the case of a girl twelve years and six months of age
who was then in the last month of pregnancy. _Koblanck_ attended a girl
of fourteen who was delivered of a child weighing four and a half
pounds.
In most of these cases the premature fertility is followed by a
premature cessation of fertility. And there is more or less truth in
_Bruce’s_ statement regarding the Arab women in Africa, that those who
began to bear children at the age of eleven were seldom still fertile at
the age of twenty.
At times we may observe a remarkable extension of fertility beyond the
average age, that is, beyond the age of fifty years.
In northern Europe pregnancy at a comparatively advanced age is by no
means rare. From the official statistics of Denmark we learn that among
10,000 women, 465 were delivered at ages between 50 and 55 years. In
Sweden, of 10,000 mothers, 300 gave birth to children when more than 50
years of age. In Ireland, the proportion of mothers over 50 was 345 per
10,000. In England the official figures dealing with the delivery of
483,613 women, showed that 7,022 were between 45 and 50 years of age,
and 167 over 50 years of age.
The Surgical Academy of Paris, in an authoritative statement regarding
the late age at which conception could take place, alluded to the fact
that Cornelia, of the family of the Scipios, gave birth to Volusius
Saturninus when sixty years of age, that the physician _Marsa_ in Venice
recorded the existence of pregnancy in a woman of sixty, that _de la
Motte_ recorded pregnancy in a woman of fifty-one, and that he believed
it to be true that another Parisian woman had given birth to a girl at
the age of sixty-three, and had herself suckled the infant.
In an important case, however, which came before the Court of Chancery
in England, the court held that there was no definite evidence of the
possibility of pregnancy in a woman sixty years of age; but that the
greatest age at which, in England, pregnancy had indisputably occurred,
was 54.
Among 4,925 deliveries occurring in the Prague Maternity Hospital,
Schwing reports that there were 9 women delivered for the first time
when over 40 years of age. Of these:
3 were 41 years of age.
2 were 42 years of age.
1 was 43 years of age.
2 were 44 years of age.
1 was 47 years of age.
_Haller_ reports the cases of two women who gave birth to children, one
at the age of 63, the other at the age of 70 years. _Meissner_ delivered
a woman of 60 years of her seventh child; _Rush_ attended the delivery
of a woman aged 60; _Dewees_ that of a woman aged 61. _Mende_ and
_Bernstein_ report cases of delivery at the age of 60. _Marion Sims_
saw, in the state of Alabama, a negro woman 58 to 60 years of age, who
gave birth to a child at this age, at an interval of twenty years since
her last pregnancy. _Nieden_ reports a case in which the first pregnancy
occurred 26 years after marriage. When married, the wife was 18 years of
age, the husband 30; during their first twenty-five years of married
life there was no sign of pregnancy, but when the wife was 44 years of
age, menstruation, hitherto regular, suddenly ceased; the cause of the
cessation proved to be pregnancy, and at term a healthy girl weighing
nine pounds was born; the mother was able to nurse the child herself.
_Smith_ attended a woman aged 52 who was delivered of twins; the
youngest of her eight other children, who were then all living, was ten
years of age.
_Rodzewitsch_ collected from the Russian literature of the years 1872 to
1881, eleven cases in which women aged 50 to 55 had given birth to
children. _Talquist_ reports that in Finland, in the year 1883, a woman
58 years of age was delivered; whilst _Ansell_ records the case of an
Englishwoman who became a mother when 59 years of age. _John Kennedy_
records the case of a woman of 62 who was normally delivered at this
age; she had begun to menstruate at the age of 13, and since the age of
20 had previously given birth to 21 children, the last five when she was
47, 49, 51, 53, and 56 years of age, respectively. _Prior_ even reports
the case of a woman 72 years of age, who not only menstruated, but had
an abortion(!)
The ideal of fertility in women is that the first completed act of
sexual intercourse should be followed immediately by conception, that
the pregnancy should terminate after the normal lapse of time in the
birth of a child, and that the same process should be repeated at
intervals of about ten months until the end of active sexual life. In
actual experience, however, this never occurs. Fertilization as an
immediate consequence of the first act of sexual intercourse (which in
the lower animals is regarded as the rule) is a very rare occurrence in
human beings. Moreover, in no single marriage is the reproductive
capacity of the wife utilized to the full, up to the time of extinction
of her generative faculty; either because the potency of the male
partner undergoes a gradual decline, or, it may be, because, after a
while, sexual intercourse becomes less frequent, or because precautions
against procreation are taken.
The number of children to which during the three decades of her sexual
life, from the menarche to the menopause, a woman might theoretically
give birth, is never actually born. If we assume that, during the period
of active sexual life, a woman requires a period of fifteen months to
two years for each pregnancy, parturition, and lactation, a woman could
easily during this period have fifteen or sixteen children, and this
figure would represent the normal product of the normal fertility of the
human female. There are indeed, women who, it may be in consequence of
an exceptionally long period of sexual activity, or through giving birth
repeatedly to twins or triplets, or because they have married several
husbands in succession, have given birth to twenty-four children or even
more. In Berlin, in the year 1901, there lived a woman 41 years of age
who had had 23 children; there were three women, aged respectively 40,
43, and 46 years, who had had each 21 children; 246 women with families
numbering 13 to 20; and 169 women each of whom had given birth to 12
children. In the very great majority of cases, however, the fertility of
the wife of the present day is never fully developed. It is modified in
various ways by the conditions of marriage, by social circumstances, by
considerations relating to the health of husband or wife, by actual
illnesses, and by voluntary limitation of fertility. Generally speaking,
according to the investigations of _Quetelet_, _Sadler_, and
_Finlayson_, the fertility of women is greatest in marriages in which
the husband is as old as the wife, or a little older, but without marked
difference in age. Marriages contracted at a very early age are less
fruitful; the highest fertility is found in marriages contracted when
the husband is 23 and the wife 26 years of age.
Conception does not generally take place until sexual intercourse has
been frequently repeated. As the result of a statistical enquiry of my
own, relating to 556 fruitful marriages, I ascertained that in these the
first delivery occurred:
Within 10 months after marriage in 156 cases.
Within 11 to 15 months after marriage in 199 cases.
Within 16 to 24 months after marriage in 115 cases.
Within 2 to 3 years after marriage in 60 cases.
More than 3 years after marriage in 26 cases.
Thus we learn that in 35.5% of the cases the first delivery occurred
within 1¼ years after marriage; in 15.6% within 10 months; and in 19.9%
within 15 months after marriage; and 11.5% of the cases, the first
delivery was more than 1¼ years and less than 2 years after marriage; in
6.0% it was between 2 and 3 years after marriage; and in 2.6%, the first
delivery did not occur until more than 3 years after marriage.
From examination of the birth registers of Edinburgh and Glasgow,
_Matthews Duncan_ determined the mean interval between marriage and the
birth of a living child to be seventeen months. In the majority of
cases, the first delivery does not occur until a complete year has
elapsed since marriage; in fact, in nearly two-thirds of the instances
the first delivery occurs during the second year of married life.
The interval between two successive births is, according to _Matthews
Duncan_, on the average 18 to 24 months, according to Goehlert, 24 to 26
months; the latter, however, points out that in cases in which the child
dies very soon after birth, the birth of the next child ensues on the
average in 16 to 18 months. In this connection, we must not fail to take
into consideration the influence of lactation, inasmuch as mothers who
do not suckle their children become pregnant considerably earlier, on
the average, than those who undertake this duty. In reigning families,
for instance, it is by no means uncommon for the consort to be delivered
twice within a single year. The degree to which lactation hinders
conception is so widely known, that women often suckle their infant for
a very long period, with the definite aim of preventing the speedy
recurrence of pregnancy. A high official from the Dutch Indies informed
me that for this reason the native women were accustomed to suckle their
infants for several years, and that it was by no means uncommon to see a
small boy running about smoking a cigar, and then hurrying to his mother
in order to be suckled.
The age at which a woman contracts marriage has also to this extent an
influence upon her fertility, inasmuch as it appears that those who
marry very young are far less fertile than those who marry between the
ages of 20 and 25 years; the latter moreover have, on the average, a
shorter time to wait for their first conception than women who marry
before the age of 20. Women who marry after the age of 25 have to wait
longer after marriage for their first delivery; in fact the older the
woman after 25, the greater, on the average, the interval between
marriage and the first delivery.
Arranging the data already referred to, regarding 556 fruitful women, in
relation to this point of view, it appears that the first birth ensued:
═════════════════════╤═════════╤═════════╤═════════╤═════════╤═════════
│ │ │15 months│ │
│ │10 to 15 │ to 2 │ 2 to 3 │More than
│Within 10│ months │ years │ years │ 3 years
│months of│ after │ after │ after │ after
│marriage.│marriage.│marriage.│marriage.│marriage.
─────────────────────┼─────────┼─────────┼─────────┼─────────┼─────────
In 163 women marrying│ │ │ │ │
at ages 15 to 20 │ │ │ │ │
years │ 36│ 53│ 46│ 18│ 10
In 313 women marrying│ │ │ │ │
at ages 20 to 25 │ │ │ │ │
years │ 98│ 113│ 56│ 32│ 14
In 70 women marrying │ │ │ │ │
at ages 25 to 33 │ │ │ │ │
years │ 18│ 30│ 12│ 9│ 1
In 10 women marrying │ │ │ │ │
at ages over 33 │ │ │ │ │
years │ 4│ 3│ 1│ 1│ 1
═════════════════════╧═════════╧═════════╧═════════╧═════════╧═════════
To give percentages, the first birth occurred,
═════════════════════╤═════════╤═════════╤═════════╤═════════╤═════════
│ │ │15 months│ │
│ │10 to 15 │ to 2 │ 2 to 3 │More than
│Within 10│ months │ years │ years │ 3 years
│months of│ after │ after │ after │ after
│marriage.│marriage.│marriage.│marriage.│marriage.
─────────────────────┼─────────┼─────────┼─────────┼─────────┼─────────
Women marrying at │ │ │ │ │
ages 15 to 20 │ │ │ │ │
years, in │ 22.0%│ 32.5%│ 28.2%│ 11.0%│ 8.1%
Women marrying at │ │ │ │ │
ages 20 to 25 │ │ │ │ │
years, in │ 31.3%│ 36.1%│ 17.8%│ 10.2%│ 4.4%
Women marrying at │ │ │ │ │
ages 25 to 33 │ │ │ │ │
years, in │ 25.7%│ 42.8%│ 17.1%│ 12.8%│ 1.4%
Women marrying at │ │ │ │ │
ages over 33 years,│ │ │ │ │
in │ 40.0%│ 30.0%│ 10.0%│ 10.0%│ 10.0%
═════════════════════╧═════════╧═════════╧═════════╧═════════╧═════════
Thus whereas in women who contracted marriage between the ages of 15 and
20 years, only 54.5% were confined for the first time within 15 months
after marriage, in women who contracted marriage between the ages of 20
and 25 years, in 67.4% the first delivery occurred within 15 months of
marriage. And whereas in those who married at the earlier age, the
percentage of first deliveries occurring between 15 months and 2 years
after marriage was 28.2, in those who married between the ages of 20 and
25, the percentage of first deliveries after the stated interval was
only 17.8.
The figures compiled by _Whitehead_ and _Pfannkuch_ give similar
results. Of 700 women who married between the ages of 15 to 20 years,
there were 306 only who gave birth to a child within the first two years
after marriage; whereas of 1,835 women who married between the ages of
20 and 25 years, no less than 1,661 gave birth to a child within two
years after marriage—a percentage of 43.7 in the former case, and 90.6
in the latter case. _Pfannkuch_, as the result of a very large
collection of figures relating to this question, found that in women
marrying before the age of 20 years, the average number of months before
the first delivery was 26; whereas in women marrying after the age of 20
years, the average number of months before the first delivery was 20.