child birth

[Mempho]

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Doesn't the substantially lower life expectancies of the past easily explain why women can be fertile at a young age?

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Bingo.

If women got pregnant later, we wouldn't exist in the first place. Since delayed marriage and childbirth have taken root (something that didn't occur until the mid-to-latter 20th century) we have birth control.

Strangely enough, the educated portions of society are not keeping up with the replacement rate.