Premium
Routine Infanticide in the West 1500–1800
Author(s) -
Hanlon Gregory
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
history compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.121
H-Index - 1
ISSN - 1478-0542
DOI - 10.1111/hic3.12361
Subject(s) - baptism , context (archaeology) , colonialism , history , juvenile , demography , geography , ethnology , gender studies , ancient history , political science , sociology , archaeology , law , ecology , biology
Historians have assumed that early modern Europeans did not practice neo‐naticide similar to the great Asian civilizations, but sex‐ratio studies are only now entering the demographic literature. This article passes in review both published and unpublished research on sex ratios at baptism in Italy, France, England and colonial Acadia, together with juvenile sex ratios drawn from censuses in Germany, France and Italy. Both endemic and conjunctural imbalances appear everywhere, but they could target females or males depending upon the context.