wrote:
> My goodness, these women *are* reaching menopause rather quickly -
if you
> consider the "childbearing" years to start at 18 or even
younger. "Yep,
> she's 25 - a real old biddy now".
>
Ummmm, sure, childbearing starts young, but in any analagous culture
it continues until, well, menopause. Granted the bless mother
affinity has the "aid contraception" feat, so Heortling women may
have more control over their fertility than did women in analagous
earthly societies, and probably a higher percentage of babies
survive, so there isn't as much pressure to have as many babies as
possible. Still, I would imagine that most women would have babies
fairly regularly during their childbearing years. I seem to recall
reading (and I'll defer to anyone more expert in this matter) that in
pre-industrial societies menopause usually occured in a woman's mid
to late thirties. Again magic may improve the quality of nutrition
and health enough for this to be pushed back marginally. Still, it
doesn't seem unreasonable that many women in their mid thirties would
have babies, and that they would hit menopause not long afterwards.
Sure, their first children would be fully grown, but their last child
could easily be just a toddler.
As I said before, it isn't horrid, but it is a substantial change in
our view of Heortling society, at least to my eyes.
--Bryan