Well, *that and there really was no effective means of birth control and dag-nabit, the making is just too much funYep, Connie...and most women in those days were almost continually pregnant from the time they first wed (many as young as 14 or 15) to the time they reached menopause (usually around 40 or so). Fun, eh, ladies?
That is, of course, unless they decided to refrain from their "fun" for awhile. I guess that's why brothels were viewed as a "necessary evil" where gentrified gentlemen could partake of their pleasures without worrying about impregnating their wives. Brothels were the "birth control" of the day, if you will. And a strange, and never-spoken-about, double standard in a supposedly rigorously religious society. Of course the less-monied, the poor, and the farmers couldn't afford this option. But one does wonder when they found time among the rural set, since many of the farm families shared one large bed with the mother and father in the middle and the children, according to age, next to them, the daughters next to Mom and the sons next to Dad. Doesn't make a great recipe for romance.
