This is brilliant! BBC News has an article up discussing a study done in Utah using census information dated between 1860 and 1985, of 21,000 families who gave birth to a total of 174,000 children. The average family had eight children but the total children in the families ranged from one to 14. 14!! I would pray for the sweet release that only death could bring at that point.

The gist of the study is that the more children these people had, the earlier they died. The women seem to suffer more since they bare the physical stress of childbirth.

The team looked at deaths after the last child was born and found mothers were also more likely than fathers to die after the last child was born.

They found 1,414 women died within a year of the last child’s birth, and another 988 by the time the child was five.

In comparison, 613 men died in the first year after their last child was born, with another 1,083 dying within five years.

Even the kids aren’t safe from this overpopulation in the home.

And the larger the family, the more likely children were to die before the age of 18, particularly if they were among the youngest.

But doesn’t this just kind of make sense? Hell, even cats will go away and die after they have too many litters.

The study also goes to suggest that menopause is the human female body’s way of safeguarding our survival and thus our ability to actually rear the children that we do have.

An interesting quote (although the phrasing in the last sentence is uncomfortable for some reason):

“If women have generally incurred greater fitness costs of reproduction, this could explain why they generally prefer fewer offspring than their husbands and reduce their fertility when they obtain more reproductive autonomy.”

Why, yes! Yes it could! But, ultimately we also incur other costs of reproduction in addition to a shortened life span. Loss of career, loss of opportunity, loss of freedom, loss of … oh, gosh, individuality.

But this immediately made me think of those crazy Qiverfull folks. Do they know? Would it matter? If they do know, do they just qualify the death of the mother as simply a necessary sacrifice towards building a stronger army for God? I am curious.