Life Expectancy and Death

[PastMidnight]

This was brought up in the sex thread and seems like it would make an interesting discussion in its own right.

As we're writing about times when babies often didn't make it past their first year of life, when women often died giving birth, and when people didn't live nearly as long or enjoyed such relative good health at the end of their lives, it seems reasonable to assume that people regarded illness and death in a different way than we do today (in places that have robust and thorough medical care, I should say).

Illness might have been regarded with more fear than today, when we can just pop down to the GP for a prescription. But, on the other hand, death might have been regarded as a bit more expected. Sure, there are terminal illnesses today, but I think on the whole, modern people don't expect illness to be terminal, whereas there was a bit more uncertainty in the past.

The other day I was pondering the oft-mentioned theory that violent movies and TV shows are 'desensitizing' today's youth to death. It occurred to me that 'today's youth' has likely never seen death apart from the TV screen, whereas in the past, it would have been quite common for a child to see. They might have seen younger siblings die, might have seen mother die in childbirth, might have seen father die from battle wounds, might have seen granny die of a wasting illness in the family bed. The deceased would have been laid out at home (can you imagine the child trying to sleep knowing that dad is in a casket in the next room?!?). I think that, given how prevalent death was in the past, we seem awfully worried about shielding our children from it today.

[Voyager]

I've had this discussion before and it is kind of interesting to me. Here in the U.S., the psychological impact of premature death is so much more profound, even now, than it is in Mexico, and I would assume, other countries that don't have comprehensive immunization programs and have a poorer demographic, substandard or non existant health care and a plethora of other issues. I know for the members of my family who live in Mexico, death is tragic, it's sad, but you grieve and move on. Many people I know here in the U.S., on the other hand, suffer all sorts of problems from depression to ptsd after the untimely loss of someone close to them. So I can well imagine that in a time when the average life expectancy was in the early thirties, death wouldn't be as scary as it is to Americans with a life expectancy in the 80's.

[Puma]

We got into this just a little bit on my death post in the SYW September challenge when the mother in one family died. There were questions raised such as - wouldn't he have known his Mother was dying, were they in denial.

You've brought up a good point and with it an implication that we need to be able to think outside our modern box. Illnesses, wounds, etc. were not as well understood and medical treatment was elementary in many cases. We also need to remember that prayer would have played a very major role in healing efforts. Good topic. Puma

[julie thorpe]

I recall hearing a lecture by a sociologist who had been studying in the US on the topic of attitudes to ageing (aging?). The gist of it was that these days children are shielded from death for one reason or another and this may well have contributed to the extraordinary lengths many people go to today to stave off-or conceal- the effects of aging. In an era when death was more discernably a part of the life cycle it's arguable that people took it more in their stride.

Regarding Puma's point about medical treatment - scary stuff! To read some of the 17th century 'cures' makes one feel it would have been better to put up with the disease rather than subject oneself to the treatment. My History prof used to say he would have liked to be an 18th-century English gentleman-always provided he could have had the benefit of 20th century dentistry. . . having just endured the agony of an abscessed tooth , I have to agree!

it's interesting too to note that in 17th century New England life expectancy (maternal death aside) was considerably greater than that of those 'back home', and those in more southern colonies. Climate and diet may have contributed. So if you survived childhood and then childbearing you had a pretty good chance of a good long life.

[dolores haze]

I've recently been reading about women in New England in the 17th and 18th centuries, and was particularly interested in their experiences of childbirth. It was quite fascinating to compare their experiences with my own.

My first child was born in a high tech, urban hospital, complete with epidural, pediatrician, obstetrician, and two nurses. My second was in a small country hospital. No anaesthesia was available, the doctor showed up in time to deliver the baby, but the nurse was the main caregiver. Both times required medication for pre-eclampsia, as well as pitocin to hasten delivery before the blood pressure spiked into convulsions. Without medical intervention it is quite possible that I and/or the child would not have survived the first birth. It was the second birth, however, that brought it home to me. Without pain relief there was no hiding from the fact that childbirth is a life or death situation. Having previously worked in a labor and delivery unit I knew too much to be able to kid myself. I wasn't scared, but was overtaken by a complete sense of fatalism. It was out of my hands. I didn't actually care if I lived or died, as long as there was an end to the pain. I wasn't overjoyed to see my child for the first time. I was just relieved to discover that we had both survived.

Would childbirth for women in times past have been much different? I would imagine that, at certain points, they would have felt the same sense of fatalism, but possibly much bolstered by religious belief. For the most part religion would have had a much greater role than it does today. Belief in an after life must have been some comfort for a woman in unuccessful labor. Also, the pains of childbirth were seen as women's punishment for Eve's sins. It was in God's hands, and if the mother and/or the child did not survive, then it was God's will.

Much has changed in modern day childbirth (at least in the first world), but at the same time, nothing has changed at all. Did women grieve less for a child that died just because it was more common? Were women more prepared for the possibility of dying in childbirth just because it was more common? The primary sources give little insight into the answers to these questions. In a neighbouring village there is a small, sunken gravestone so weathered with time that you can barely read the inscription. It's from the 1780's, and marks the death of a day old girl child. It's things like this that make me think that the grief they felt then was the same as what we would feel today, and that the commonality of child death did not dilute the emotion. Is frequent grief less painful than infrequent grief?

One last question: Do you feel, as writers of historical fiction, that it is harder to "get into the head" of historical women, than historical men?

[julie thorpe]

The diaries/journals of 17th century men that I have read show painful, personal grief for the loss of children, even though the will of God was assumed to be the reason for it. I'd be surprised if it was any different to how we feel today even though it was relatively a more frequent event. And I can't see how the mother could have felt any different, after the effort and pain of giving birth. I had two very similar experiences to yours, Dolores, in childbirth and like you I would not have survived in another era. Even today -and my second child is 33 - I can still feel flashbacks to the helplessness I felt on each occasion (for neither of which I had any pain relief). So I feel I have some insight into the way a woman felt when a birth was not going well - though of course I was on each occasion in a large well-equipped maternity hospital.
At least I could ensure I didn't risk having any more. But there was no such 'out' for the women way back when. Every pregnancy must perforce have carried the possibility of death. Oddly enough, Anne Bradstreet - my MC - had rather indifferent health, yet she bore eight living children all of whom survived to adulthood and marriage.

Getting 'into the head' of a women of my chosen period is less easy than doing the same for a man - there is so much more personal information about the men available from diaries etc. I have found a lot of historians who write about Anne Bradstreet invest her with the attributes of a rather modern type of feminism and fail to take into account the power of her faith over her life. Iin her case we have some personal reminiscences, mostly of her religious progress.
But many women academic historians are working away on uncovering the lives of everyday women in the period, and it is getting a little easier to 'get inside' the 17th century colonial woman's mind by looking at the details of her life, her marital and dometic duties, and experiences such as childbirth and illness.

[girlyswot]

The diaries/journals of 17th century men that I have read show painful, personal grief for the loss of children, even though the will of God was assumed to be the reason for it. I'd be surprised if it was any different to how we feel today even though it was relatively a more frequent event. And I can't see how the mother could have felt any different, after the effort and pain of giving birth.

I think I basically agree. Although I wonder if, after it's happened several times, there are other emotions that are vying with the grief. Anger, exhaustion, wanting to give up. I'm thinking of someone like Queen Anne who gave birth to 17 children, not one of whom reached adulthood. Of course she must have grieved her 17th, but I think it would have felt different from the 1st or the 5th. And for her, of course, the added burden of so desperately wanting an heir - her duty not just to her husband, but also to her country.

[c.e.lawson]

Fascinating thread PastMidnight! And wonderful responses, everyone.

I just have a couple of quick comments.

Regarding the concern about desensitizing our children about death in these modern times. Yes, generally speaking, children back then were exposed to way more REAL death, violent and not so violent. My perspective is that allowing children to watch violent (and most times unrealistic and sanitized) deaths on television/movies/video games, all of which concern characters or actors that have no real connection to the children beyond entertainment, is VERY different from a properly sober exposure to the death of a loved one in all of its familial/traditional/societal aspects. These "historical" deaths are a real part of life and are in the full context of life. Big difference there. Certainly more painful, but also possibly opening up one's perspective to the bigger picture, and teaching invaluable life lessons along with the pain?

And regarding JulieThorpe's comment: And I can't see how the mother could have felt any different, after the effort and pain of giving birth. Agreed and I would go a step further - nine months of feeling that baby grow and move and kick inside you, and all of the hopes and anticipation and dreams for that child that bloom along the way? It quite possibly could be even more painful than the man's experience.

c.e.

[PastMidnight]

Great discussion!

Good points about emotions surrounding the death of a child being very real across the ages. I think of my grandmother, who had problems with miscarriage, premature births, and then the loss of a week-old baby. Until the day my grandmother died, mere mention of her lost little girl would bring tears. The fact that she had had problems with so many previous pregnancies didn't dim the grief that she felt for that baby.

So maybe it isn't fair to assume that grief would be lessened in earlier times, but would it be fair to ponder if that grief might have been different? At the time that my grandmother had so many problems, none of her doctors could give her an answer. I don't know precisely how she dealt with her grief, but she likely turned to prayer to find answers. It is reasonable to suppose that a woman without answers might have even placed blame on God. Take a 21st century woman, however, and, while she still might search for answers within her religion, she is also likely to search for answers within medical science. If a modern woman were to lose a baby, despite the best efforts of medical professionals, blame might be placed on science. 'If the doctor had done X sooner...' 'If the doctor hadn't done X'

[PastMidnight]

I recall hearing a lecture by a sociologist who had been studying in the US on the topic of attitudes to ageing (aging?). The gist of it was that these days children are shielded from death for one reason or another and this may well have contributed to the extraordinary lengths many people go to today to stave off-or conceal- the effects of aging. In an era when death was more discernably a part of the life cycle it's arguable that people took it more in their stride.


This sounds like an interesting idea!

Just the other day as I was struggling with a scene where I was describing a middle-aged woman. It occurred to me that I really didn't know what a middle-aged woman back then might look like. I mean, with make up, hair dye, cosmetic surgery, push-up bras, age-defying face cream, body-slimming undergarments, good dental care, good general medical care, etc., women these days likely look years younger than a woman of equivalent age in times past.

I've mentioned how I've been poring over old photographs recently. In some of them, the women could be anywhere from 28-48. They all look tired and in need of some sound nutrition. Their age is really indeterminate. I'm finding it more fascinating.

[PastMidnight]

Regarding the concern about desensitizing our children about death in these modern times. Yes, generally speaking, children back then were exposed to way more REAL death, violent and not so violent. My perspective is that allowing children to watch violent (and most times unrealistic and sanitized) deaths on television/movies/video games, all of which concern characters or actors that have no real connection to the children beyond entertainment, is VERY different from a properly sober exposure to the death of a loved one in all of its familial/traditional/societal aspects. These "historical" deaths are a real part of life and are in the full context of life. Big difference there. Certainly more painful, but also possibly opening up one's perspective to the bigger picture, and teaching invaluable life lessons along with the pain?



Fair point, c.e.. I wasn't advocating that we all sit our children down to an episode of CSI as a good lesson in death and mortality. :) I think you are right in that real-life deaths are in a context.

Ok, for the sake of debate, what would you say about the historical practice of bringing children to watch executions to set an example for them of what happened to people who sinned (or whatever the crime)? Or similarly, fairy tales and fables which taught that a bad end came to the wicked? Would you say that examples such as this provided that same 'detached' exposure to death for children that TV and movies provide for today's children?

Again, NOT advocating violence for children. Don't want you all to think that I'm a horrid mother!

[wee]

I can't qualify this with sources, but remember it from a college class.

The prof said that for a long time historians assumed women didn't get attached to children until the kids were older, because of risk of death. This was also partly the very male perspective on history.

Later as women's journals were taken more seriously as depicting history, they found that women did get attached to their children just as strongly as anywhere else ... with one big difference.

If your child today has cancer or a terrible illness, you will fight till their last breath with every medical thing you can throw at the illness, and scarcely believe it could really happen to you, that your child could die. In the past, this wasn't possible -- medicine was unhelpful for the most part. Once the mothers reached the point where they realized the child was unlikely to survive, they began to grieve & withdraw from the still-living child early.

I thought this was weird until my grandfather died this past year. My grandparents raised me & are more like my parents. He had been ill for a very long time, and because he was miserable for several years, his personality changed fairly dramatically. For 2-3 years I slowly grieved the loss of him bit by bit. By the time he died he wasn't my granddad anymore, as in not the same person, and his dying was nearly a relief after watching him suffer (he was very ready to die and stopped eating so basically starved to death over the last month of his life).

The role of faith cannot be overlooked. Grieving is still grieving, but when you believe that the person is experiencing something better (versus nothing) and that you may see them again, it does mitigate it somewhat. As does the age of the person & how much you saw them suffer before they died, whether recovery was an option or not.

I don't think feelings change -- but how & when we experience them in context with the world we live in & our faith, DOES change.

I do believe grief may have become a more protracted & personally devastating thing in modern times -- not the loss itself, but the grieving part of it. In times where your own survival & survival of other children depending on you getting out of bed & working yourself to a nub every single day ... I think it was more necessary to compartmentalize that grief. When you do that, it is easier to process it a little at a time & keep yourself busy. In these times it is possible to just wallow & drown in it, stop functioning for years (which I have seen). In some ways our lives are so easy that we expect nothing bad to ever happen, and can't process it at all.

My husband is 30 years old & has never lost anyone who was that close to him. Just a great-aunt that he only saw about once per year, and that was nearly 15 years ago. That would have been unheard-of in almost any other period of history or place, ever. Even I have led a pretty sheltered life but have lost several family members and 3 friends who were my own age. I still feel like my experience with death is pretty narrow -- no loss of spouse or child (thank God).

When death is that rare ... I think grieving is something you don't understand how to do, how to move on or how to deal with it ... and THAT has changed over history, from times when grieving was a regular part of life. (feel free to argue with me!)


wee

[pdr]

such a revealing thread, and so I am not writing but spending time thinking about this topic.

Desensitised to death?
No, I think we are deeply afraid of death so terrified that those we think might die. like cancer victims, notice that acquaintances, neighbours and even colleagues and friends disappear, cross the road, don't reply to phone messages etc. never come near them.

And yes, we do believe the medical profession when they tell us that they can cure anything. We do belief that we can beat death. All that blaming and suing over medical malpractice must surely be a symptom of it.

Prayer and the belief in God's will be done are all that carried my 17thC English characters through their illnesses.

And on Julie's comment about people today and plastic surgery etc. Even looking at films made in the 40s and 50s you get to see old people. Something which is much rarer in modern films. And I know I am experiencing illogical anger over aching joints and wrinkles because I have always been careful to keep fit and still do and be careful about my skin. How dare I get old and stiff and wrinkled!

But as for children, child birth and women's attitudes I get really stroppy when some male propounds the idea that a woman who has carried a child, even for a few months, and felt all those body changes and that magical first fluttering, can not feel grief at its loss. Of course there were and are callous mothers and I daresay those poor souls with little to eat would rather see the babe die at birth than starve, but that protective caring is a biologically programmed system to ensure the survival of the race!

My readings of the diaries and journals, particularly of the 17th C parsons, shows an interesting protective attitude to their wives when pregnant. There are times when a pregnancy is not announced until past the first three months, perhaps a case of not getting up their hopes? Pregnancy is regarded as dangerous, some of the letters from a husband to his brother talk of his fears and prayers for his beloved wife's safety as she nearly died during the last pregnancy. One of the parsons talks of the dangers of pregnancy when gloomily recording that two more of his parishioners are carrying children, and another seems resigned to the fact that children don't survive. He only writes of his son by name and not as the babe when the child is six months old. An interesting way of protecting himself?

The comment about withdrawing and preparing in hopeless cases also seems borne out in the many comments about 'God's Will be Done', 'It's God's Will and s/he's going any day now.' People seemed to expect the worst of an illness or accident. Of course there is constant mention of the very strong belief that there was a Heaven and it was a paradise for the loved or little one. Comfort for most people.

And yes, for my 17thC people, comfortable Merchants though they were, they still had their separate and necessary tasks to ensure the family's survival through the winter and to the next year. The women had all the food, storage, clothing, lighting, herbs and preserves and medicines as just a few of their household tasks which had to be done. A death was honoured with the traditional customs, but if the family were to survive then those tasks had to be done. Working, talking, and I'm sure weeping for the dead one would have been the order of the day. And anyone getting too depressed or grief-stricken would have, according to several of my parsons' letters or diaries, a brisk and firm homily on the subject of behaving like a Christian and being glad that the dead one had reached a state of Grace in paradise. How dare s/he moan and bewail here on sinful earth when the loved one was in God's care!
We are out of balance today aren't we?

[Shweta]

This is an interesting thread. I'm just popping in because it got me wondering -- there are also no grieving periods and less in the way of grieving rituals now, yes?

If I understand it right, many traditional cultures have or had a setup where people would get a week or so to do nothing but mourn, and they were expected and encouraged to show overt grief in this time. They got to fall apart, some, with social support, and that was to some extent cathartic. And it was communal.

Nowadays, when you basically have to be back to work or school soon or you'll fall behind -- it's much harder to actually let the grief have its time.

I wonder if it's that, as well as the lack of distraction afterwards and the unfamiliarity with it, that makes grief so devastating.


On the other hand, someone in another AW thread (don't remember who or what, sorry) noted that in Anne of Green Gables there was a Bad Mother described who... reads as clinically depressed. So social pressure could have meant that people who were suffering terribly weren't recognized as such, and were just considered Bad; and keeping up appearances and seeming to be a good member of the group was so important. So some people might have seemed to deal better with grief than we do, because of social pressures, while not actually...

My 2p

[dolores haze]

Some thoughts on the concept of death in today's society.

Deaths of elderly relatives used to take place in the home, surrounded by their children and grandchildren. Today there are so many elderly people spending their last days in nursing homes, being taken care of by professionals, that death is not so much a natural part of life as it used to be.

Schweta makes an excellent point about grieving rituals. It is common now to keep children away from funerals. I've done it myself - wanting to protect them from the reality that everyone will die someday. I have no religious beliefs myself, so I don't have the "grandma is in heaven with the angels" thing to fall back on. Though I've gotta say - I've been tempted.

And children see so much "fake" death on T.V., no matter how you try to shield them from it. I watched Bambi with my kids, prepared for them to be as upset at the death of Bambi's mother as I was when I saw it as a child. They didn't even blink, and when I tried to talk to them about it, the older one said, "Mom - it's just a movie."

[johnnysannie]

I was influenced very much by my Granny (paternal grandmother) who had a big part in my raising and often my outlook is much more old-fashioned than my baby boomer generation peers. She prepared me all my life for her death so when she died (I was 18), I mourned but I was prepared. I was not blind-sided and I dealt with it.

That said, however, there are exceptions to the modern fear of death or avoidance of all things relating to death.

People still die at home - not as many, not as often, but they do. My father-in-law and my cousin Mary are just two that I can name, both within the last few years.

I have never shielded my children from either death or funerals because, as I teach them, death is a part of life. They have attended all funerals of family members and when my maternal grandmother died last year at the age of 92, I allowed them to be in the room until death was imminent. I was holding my grandmother's hand when she passed and the room was full of loved ones.

All of the great-grandchildren were honorary pallbearers but my son who was five at the time insisted that he would perform his duty. His quote "I have to help carry her." is one I will never forget and he did, with full understanding of what he was doing.

Yes, many people today fear death and avoid anything to do with it but not all of us. And the minority who don't have a far better understanding of death in history.

[wee]

He only writes of his son by name and not as the babe when the child is six months old. An interesting way of protecting himself?


Also don't forget that men bond differently with their children than women, because they didn't carry them, nurse them, etc. My husband hardly noticed our kids except as little crying, pooping critters who disturbed his sleep & always interrupted when he wanted ... ahem ... until they were at least 6 months old, possibly a year.

In previous times women sometimes stayed cloistered after the birth of a child for as many as 6 months (my great-grandmother did; it was a great way to space her kids since she always got pregnant immediately after this time period was up -- and was pregnant or nursing for more than 20 years straight). For the first 6 months he may have seen little of his wife except when he went to sit with her, and at 6 months babies start sitting up, being animated & more part of things.

I wouldn't consider the 'babe' --> name thing to be related to death necessarily.

On the other hand, someone in another AW thread (don't remember who or what, sorry) noted that in Anne of Green Gables there was a Bad Mother described who... reads as clinically depressed. So social pressure could have meant that people who were suffering terribly weren't recognized as such, and were just considered Bad; and keeping up appearances and seeming to be a good member of the group was so important. So some people might have seemed to deal better with grief than we do, because of social pressures, while not actually...


This still very much exists, particularly in the south. Needing an antidepressant is a shameful, hidden thing. You just don't do it, don't discuss it. The Bible belt is the worst because there is a strong feeling among many that this means you aren't depending on God to heal you. Well, if God won't heal you from a sinus infection without antibiotics, or heal your diabetes so you won't have to take insulin, I'm sure he sees no point in performing a miracle just so you won't have to swallow a little pill each day to deal with a chemical imbalance! This same line of reasoning follows out to "He is in a better place ..." etc. To state it in a less serious way: If my best friend moves across the country, just because she really likes it there doesn't mean I won't miss her! No matter how glorious you think the after-life is, a person no longer around, forever, is still a big loss to those left behind.

[Shweta]

Which gets to the idea that grieving is in many ways more for the living than the dead...