Infanticide common in the Roman Empire?
 

Of course we have all heard of the evil practices of the Carthaginians, due in part to Roman historians. How about a look at the Romans:
Infanticide Common in Roman Empire : Discovery News

I am sure it was common in most parts of the world back then. Ditto for slavery. Have to agree on the bit about the Romans making sure their enemies got all the bad press, considering most of them hadn't invented writting this wasn't too hard to do either.

Really stretching the archaeological evidence. A disease could have wipe out a number of babies at the same time, and they were buried together.

In'Goddesses,Whores, Wives and Slaves, Women in Classical Antiquity'Sarah BPomeroy writes:

'Most upper-class Roman women were able to find husbands,not only for first marriages but for successive remarriages. One reason for this,apparently, was that there were fewer females than males among their social peers. As in Greece, this disproportion was the result of the shorter lifespan of females, whose numbers fell off sharply once the childbearing years were reached. there were the additional factors of the selective infanticide and exposure of female infants and probably more important, a subtle but pervasive attitude that gave preferential treatment to boys. This can be surmised from a law attributed to Romulus that required a father to raise all male children but only thefirst-born female. '

This is in stark contrast to the customs of Sparta. Still practicing a very measured form of infanticide for purely eugenic reasons, the female newborns were not judged by the same criteria as the males. Much more leeway was given to determine their worthfullness to the state and their ability to produce offspring.

Spartan Women. S.Pomeroy
Property and Wealth in Classical Sparta. S.Hodkinson
Sparta, Beyond the Mirage. S.Hodkinson

This incogrous fact (in terms of our present experience where women live longer on average than men) also holds true for women in the Eastern Roman Empire during medieval times. Nonetheless widowhood was still quite common since men tended to marry younger wifes. Any explanations for the shift or the fact itself would be welcome.

Simple: woman tended to die giving birth. Today they don't.

Thanks for sharing with us the fascinating findings still in press of Dr Mays et al :) :) :cool:.

Our Guaporense is of course entirely right; even at Medieval times as much as 20% of women may have died from obstetric complications.

In social terms, classical infanticide was essentially the equivalent of modern induced abortion; the latter practice was of course far more dangerous for the mother at classical times.

And it fulfilled the same role as abortion does today in many countries, getting rid of unwanted females.

Thanks for the answer Guaoprense and Sylla. It does make alot of sense. Good job too we left these times behind us.