INFANTICIDE GRADUATE BIBLIOGRAPHY Fall 2020 (original) (raw)
Related papers
Routine Infanticide in the West 1500-1800
History Compass, 2016
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 This article passes in review both published and unpublished research on sex ratios at baptism in Italy, France, England and colonial Acadia, together with juvenile sex ratios drawn from censuses in Germany, France and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. It is still considered newsworthy that in much of the world, parents select the sex of their children before bringing a pregnancy to term. In China, the sex ratio at birth is currently 116 males for every female, while in India, the rate is 111, significantly above the well-established biological norm of 105. 1 This sex preference creates well-publicized difficulties for young men seeking brides (The Economist, April 18 2015). Why kill females preferentially? The literature often lays the blame on misogynistic ideologies, suggesting that it would be sufficient to combat them with propaganda in order to eradicate the practice. There are several better reasons: first of all, in agricultural economies requiring strenuous ploughing with large animals and equally strenuous field and forest work far from home, males were better value. In patrilocal societies where husbands, or their families, received a sizeable dowry for the bride (which served as a security cushion for her and her children in the event of the premature death of either spouse), parents were unequal to the task of providing those for several daughters. Finally, if the aim is to keep the future population stable in order not to overstretch resources, then killing future child-bearers is simply more efficient than killing males and females indiscriminately. Today unwanted pregnancies are usually terminated by abortion, but in the past, the safer solution was to kill the newborn or expose it to the elements. Infanticide, like abortion, may be human universals, that is, part of the behavioural repertoire of every known society, although its frequency would vary according to local environmental conditions. 2 Humans are not alone in this behaviour: mothers in many species of mammals will sometimes cull their offspring at birth. In Darwinian language, infanticide, or abortion that has replaced it, are adaptive mechanisms involving some kind of rational decision-making on the part of the parent, which is usually the mother. 3 In most societies, newborns are not considered full-f ledged persons when leaving the womb. Rather, some sort of ceremony confers a name and social identity on them, sometimes providing an additional set of symbolic kin. Returning to the great Asian civilizations where sex-selective behaviour persists, parents enact strategies to better themselves and assess the likelihood of survival and future of the newborn infant. In traditional China and Japan, neonatal infanticide was a kind of post-natal abortion that allowed parents to choose the number, the spacing and the sex of their offspring, while coping better with short-term difficulties like famine. 4 In his compelling recent study on northeastern Japan, Fabian Drixler suggests that one-third of live births ended with infanticide during the 18th century, despite government disapproval of the practice. 5 Historians sometimes
2021
On October 2, 2020, a newborn infant girl was discovered in the trash in an airport bathroom in Doha, Qatar. There was a rush to secure the infant's life, which was successful. There was a rush, also, to find the infant's mother, an effort that involved subjecting several women to intrusive physical examinations to determine if they had recently given birth, leading, eventually, to international outcry.
Infanticide by Married Couples in Early Modern Marmande History Honours Thesis
2016
My honours thesis which argues that infanticide was routinely committed by married couples in 17th c. Marmande, France. Through the use of baptismal records from 1644-1711, I assert that not only were married couples routinely killing infants during subsistence crises, but that certain lower class couples tended to kill female infants in general.
Gendercide: A Commentary on The Economist's Report About the Wordwide War on Baby Girls
Preconception sex selection is one of the most controversial issues in bioethics today. There is a widespread fear that a technology that allows parents to choose the sex of their children will have disastrous social effects. In its article " Gendercide: The Worldwide War on Baby Girls, " The Economist claimed that the advent of preconception sex selection will lead to a socially disruptive imbalance of the sexes in Asian and Arab countries. While it is true that prenatal diagnosis and selective abortions have led to a distorted sex ratio in countries such as India and China, it is unjustified to blame science for Asia's social problems. It is religion not science that is responsible for the problems arising from new reproductive technologies, such as preimplantation genetic diagnosis or preconception sex selection. There is an old Indian proverb according to which " eighteen goddess-like daughters are not equal to one son with a hump. " In its recent article " Gendercide: The Worldwide War on Baby Girls, " The Economist reported about the gruesome fate of daughters in countries like China, Korea and India. As is well-known, girls are still ruthlessly discriminated against in large parts of the Asian continent and the Arab world. The most outrageous crime against daughters is infanticide – the killing of newborn babies for no other reason than being of the " wrong " sex. Although I welcome The Economist's effort to keep us aware of the discrimination against baby girls, its article is highly misleading. First, it seems to imply that the advent of science and technology has made things worse in Asia. However, as everyone familiar with India's history knows, female infanticide has a long tradition. For example, in the nineteenth century the Jhareja Rajputs killed virtually all their girls at birth. They were even known as the " kuri mar, " the " daughter killers. " One of the most important reasons for preferring sons over daughters is religion. According to Hinduism, a man who has failed to sire a son cannot achieve salvation. Only a male descendant can light the funeral pyre and ensure the redemption of the departed soul. Thus, the fault does not lie with science but with religion.