I’m not who you were responding to, but first borns certainly aren’t necessary. High fertility, low marriage age places like West Africa (Niger in particular has an average of 7 births per woman) meet the 15-20 range pretty spot on. A woman can easily have a child every year or so from 15 to 20, then they sort of coast to a stop by their late 20s. The majority of births are early because their so close together.
Average reported marriage age of women in Niger is 19… I’ve lived there, and in the village, it’s 15 or 16. I have seen 9 year olds get “married” but it was really more like a reservation to get real married when she’s 15 or so. Even using official stats, 1 kid before 20 and 3 or 4 kids before age 25 is very achievable.
I have personally met 30-year old grandmothers there who didn’t think anything of it. They’re 75% of the way to average life expectancy anyways.
I would say an average of 5 mothers per century up to 1850 or 1900 sounds about right, and is still a fairly conservative figure.
I’m not who you were responding to, but first borns certainly aren’t necessary. High fertility, low marriage age places like West Africa (Niger in particular has an average of 7 births per woman) meet the 15-20 range pretty spot on. A woman can easily have a child every year or so from 15 to 20, then they sort of coast to a stop by their late 20s. The majority of births are early because their so close together.
Average reported marriage age of women in Niger is 19… I’ve lived there, and in the village, it’s 15 or 16. I have seen 9 year olds get “married” but it was really more like a reservation to get real married when she’s 15 or so. Even using official stats, 1 kid before 20 and 3 or 4 kids before age 25 is very achievable.
I have personally met 30-year old grandmothers there who didn’t think anything of it. They’re 75% of the way to average life expectancy anyways.
I would say an average of 5 mothers per century up to 1850 or 1900 sounds about right, and is still a fairly conservative figure.