there are a number of possibilities that would account for this:  hihg infant
morality rate; a higher rate of children dying in 1622 war; and low fertility rate
among women perhaps caused by poor diet, although by 1612 or so the starving time
in Va. was pretty much over, I believe.

One more thought:  perhaps the simpist explanation of all:  the people doing the
counting simply ignored young children!

[log in to unmask] wrote:

> In a message dated 1/2/2002 9:02:23 PM Eastern Standard Time,
> [log in to unmask] writes:
>
> > There were 163 married couples, all of which were of childbearing
> > age, but there were only 122 children.   Only about half the couples had any
> > children at all.  It is possible some of them had been married less than a
> > year, but this still seems to be a large number of childless couples.  Was
> > this because the infant mortality was still very high?
> >
> > Netti Schreiner-Yantis
> >
>
> This is an excellent question and I will be very interested in seeing the
> responses. I don't believe that I have ever seen anyone note the lack of
> Virginia-born children during that time period.
>
> Bill Russell
>
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