Marital fertility and lactation 1570–1720

There is no doubt that the fertility of rich women between 1570 and 1720 was often appallingly high. It was not uncommon for a rich woman to bear twenty children, and at least one gave birth to thirty infants. ¹ This knowledge has led some to believe that in the eighteenth century ‘a rise in fertility could not have occurred simply because fertility behaviour was already unrestricted and had always been so’. ² However, at local level, it has long been recognized that the majority of women in pre-industrial society did not have large families. ³