INFANTICIDE GRADUATE BIBLIOGRAPHY Fall 2020 (original) (raw)

Most historical work on infanticide in the Western world has been rendered obsolete by advances in sex-ratio studies applied worldwide. By examining census materials and focusing on the relative numbers of boys and girls at the youngest ages, historians of Asia and elsewhere conclude that neo-naticide was a fairly routine form of population control. Western research has concentrated instead on single women prosecuted by tribunals, a modest fraction of all prosecuted homicides. If we study sex ratios in the West the same way we study them in Asia, it becomes obvious that neo-natal homicide by married women was anything but rare. However, the phenomenon was never uniform across society nor over time, nor was it ever directed exclusively against girls. If I had graduate students (Honours, MA or PhD) interested in the phenomenon, this would be their basic reading list.