Talk:Infanticide

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Contents

[edit] Long section of 2002 exchanges

In many ancient cultures, including those of ancient Greece, Rome, India, China, and Japan, harsh conditions or cultural mores occasionally resulted in the harsh choice to end the lives of newly-born infants.

Occasionally? I'm not sure it was as rare as all that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.97.182.1 (talk • contribs)

Alas, you're probably right. I seem to recall that it was standard practice for Roman infants to be brought before the paterfamilias, who would then decide whether the kid was to be exposed or not... but I don't trust my recollection enough to put it in the article. The topic really deserves a thorough discussion - which I don't have the expertise to provide, alas. -- April
The patriarch of all Jews, Abraham himself, is recorded in Genesis as being ordered by God to kill his son Isaac. So I don't think the ancient Jews can have been that much opposed to infanticide. Bear in mind that much post-classical writing about the classical era was written by early Christians who regarded all pre-Christian beliefs as heretical and, like the Jews before them (remember the Moloch story?) were eager to paint their enemies as evil beyond measure. --Tony Sidaway 23:06, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
erm, Isaac was hardly an "infant" when Abraham was tested by God. 68.237.98.55 01:50, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

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Something I'd like to integrate into the article somehow:

[throughout history, only women took care of children]

“ The problem with having only women raising children is that parenting is an emotionally demanding task, requiring considerable maturity, and throughout history girls have grown up universally despised. When a girl was born, said the Hebrews, "the walls wept."59 Japanese lullabies sang, "If it's a girl, stamp on her."60 In medieval Muslim cultures "a grave used to be prepared, even before delivery, beside the woman's resting place [and] if the new-born was a female she was immediately thrown by her mother into the grave."61 "Blessed is the door out of which goes a dead daughter" was a popular Italian proverb that was meant quite literally.62 Girls from birth have everywhere been considered full of dangerous pollution-the projected hatred of adults-and were therefore more often killed, exposed, abandoned, malnourished, raped and neglected than boys. Girls in traditional societies spent most of their growing up years trying to avoid being raped by their neighbors or employers and thereby being forced into a lives of prostitution. To expect horribly abused girls to magically become mature, loving caretakers when as teenagers they go to live as virtual slaves in a strange family simply goes against the conclusions of every clinical study we have showing the disastrous effects of trauma upon the ability to mother.63 ”

[1] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.43.40.79 (talk • contribs)

The point that childrearing is an emotionally demanding task often left to women who may also have inadequate social and emotional support/resources is an interesting and important point. But it is wrong to state that "Girls from birth have everywhere been considered full of dangerous pollution-the projected hatred of adults-and were therefore more often killed, exposed, abandoned, malnourished, raped and neglected than boys." This is true of many societies but probably not most and most definitely not all. By the way, where do "the Hebrews" say that the walls weep when a girl is born? I am suspicious of the other quotes too, as they are taken out of context -- although I do get the general point, and think it is important. SR —Preceding unsigned comment added by Slrubenstein (talk • contribs)

59. Barbara Kaye Greenleaf, Children Through the Ages: A History of Childhood. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1978, p. 7.

Funny, this does not look like a Hebrew text. An assertion that "When a girl was born, said the Hebrews, 'the walls wept.'" should be supported by a citation of a Hebrew document. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Slrubenstein (talk • contribs)

You can look up the citations yourself next time.

The context of the quotes doesn't matter. Whether it was literal or figurative, it represents the wishes of people in those time periods. And we know from independent evidence that female children were despised. For example, in ancient Greece, almost no families raised 2 daughters. I'm sure they raised sons though. The evidence is so overwhelming (coming from multiple sources throughout history), that I wonder how you can question the fact.

Also you missed one point. Parenting wasn't "often" left to women. It was always left to women. It's only very recently (this century only), and then only in advanced societies, where parenting is "often" left to women. This point is discussed in detail in the sections preceding the one I quoted above. -- ark

Later on, there is a whole section on 'Infanticide as Child Sacrifice' at [2]:

“ Although poverty played some part in this holocaust of children, it is doubtful if it was the main cause of child deaths. In the first place, the cost of bringing up a girl is no more than the cost of bringing up a boy, so the differential infanticide rates are certainly parental choices. When, for instance, Arabs dug a grave next to the birthing place of every new mother so "if the newborn child was a female she could be immediately thrown by her mother into the grave,"105 it was likely hatred of girls, not poverty, that was the motive. Secondly, if scarce resources were the main cause, then wealthy parents should kill less than poor. But the historical record shows exactly the opposite: historical boy/girl ratios are higher among wealthy parents,106 where economic necessity is no problem at all. Even in early modern England, the infant mortality rates for wealthy children were higher than the same rates for ordinary farmers, day laborers and craftsman.107 Thirdly, many wealthy high civilizations such as Greece, Rome, China, India, Hawaii and Tahiti are very infanticidal, especially among their elite classes. As one visitor to Hawaii reported, there probably wasn't a single mother who didn't throw one or more of her children to the sharks.108 There were even societies where virtually all newborn were killed to satisfy their overwhemling infanticidal needs, and infants had to be imported from adjoining groups to continue the society.109 Finally, many nations-like in Japan until recently-kill their children selectively in order to balance out an equal number of boys and girls, a practice called mabiki, or "thinning out" the less promising ones,110 again revealing a quite different motive than the purely economic. It is most certainly not economics that causes so many depressed women on the delivery tables even today to implore their mothers not to kill them after they have given birth.111 Women since the beginning of time have felt that their children "really" belonged to God-a symbol of the grandmother, and that "the child was a gift that God had every right to reclaim."112 When killing her child, therefore, the mother was simply acting as her own mother's avenger.

[two more paragraphs, one of them not so relevant, the other very relevant]

Opposition by society to infanticide was negligible until modern times. Jews considered any child who died within thirty days after birth, even by violence, to have been a "miscarriage."122 Most ancient societies openly approved of infanticide, and although Roman law, in response to Christianity, made infanticide a capital offense in 374 C.E., no cases have been found punishing it.123 Anglo-Saxons actually considered infanticide a virtue, not a crime, saying, "A child cries when he comes into the world, for he anticipates its wretchedness. It is well for him that he should die...he was placed on a slanting roof [and] if he laughed, he was reared, but if he was frightened and cried, he was thrust out to perish."124 Prosecutions for infanticide before the modern period were rare.125 Even medieval penitentials excused mothers who killed their newborn before feeding them.126 By Puritan times, a few mothers began being hanged for infanticide.127 But even in the nineteenth century it was still "not an uncommon spectacle to see the corpses of infants lying in the streets or on the dunghills of London and other large cities.128 The English at the end of the century had over seven million children enrolled in "burial insurance societies;" with the infant mortality rate at 50 percent, parents could easily collect the insurance by killing their child. As one doctor said, "sudden death in infants is too common a circumstance to be brought before the attention of the coroner...Free medical care for children was refused...'No, thank you, he is in two burial clubs' was a frequent reply to offers of medical assistance for a sick child. Arsenic was a favorite poison..."129

 ”
  • A Jewish firstborn child must be redeemed after 30 days of life. Not much more truth is found in your text concerning this matter. In Judaism, a child is a human the moment it is half-emerged (some say that only the head needs to emerge) from within his or her mother. From that moment almost anything must be done to save the child's life. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.248.78.122 (talk • contribs) [2006 comment]

A lot of what this author says is extremely radical and controversial (though that doesn't mean it's any the less authoritative). What I'm quoting is neither radical nor controversial, at least for anyone acquainted with history. Widespread and routine infanticide are very well documented. And certainly, one can't understand ancient history without it.

I don't like to quote so extensively but I prefer to do it here than in the article. – ark —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.43.40.79 (talk • contribs)

Let's be very clear about how "Loving" infanticidal people are towards children. They're not! Anyone who reports them as such is delusional. It's that simple.

Now, the proof of this is only slightly more complex.

  1. do the infanticidal parents' touching of the infants differ in any way from a dildo? No.
  2. do the infanticidal parents pay attention to the needs of the infant or child? Absolutely not.
  3. do the infanticidal parents even look in the eyes of the infant or child? No.

From these considerations alone, one must conclude that the anthropologists involved are hallucinating. Or seriously deluding themselves. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.43.40.79 (talk • contribs)

Why was the section on the Chinese situation redundant. The notion that female infanticide is common in China is common enough that it bears some discussion about why demographers don't think it is common. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Roadrunner (talk • contribs)
Which is discussed on the one child policy page. IOW, redundant. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.43.40.79 (talk • contribs)

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Removed this statement.......

Infanticide can be deduced from very skewed birth statistics. The natural male to female birth ratio is slightly below 1:1. And the life expectancy of females is naturally greater than males. When a society has a male to female ratio of 2:1 or 3:1 in children or adults, infanticide is a safe conclusion.

There are areas of China and India which have extremely skewed birth rates which are due to sex-selective abortions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Roadrunner (talk • contribs)

Slash and burn fuckers. Then mention abortion damnit! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.43.40.79 (talk • contribs)
Removed, Wetnursing was itself an infanticidal practice since the wetnurse usually killed her own child to leave milk for others'. This is a highly dubious claim; I'd like to see where it's supported in the literature. Given non-infanticidal child mortality rates in non-technological societies, the existence of wet-nurses is not in itself evidence of infanticide! In addition, some wet-nurses supported another family's infant and their own newborn simultaneously, though this practice sometimes left one or both infants short of full nutrition. -- April, Friday, July 19, 2002
Are you sure about that last sentence? My understanding is that, in nursing women, milk production increases or decreases according to demand. --Stephen Gilbert
To a certain extent, I think it does. We should also consider that, in many cultures with high infant mortality, wet nurses were sometimes mothers who had lost their own infants. Moreover, babies were generally nursed for longer periods in the pre-modern world, so a woman could wean one child and keep the milk flow by taking on another. J Hofmann Kemp

The paragraph talking about infanticide through "killing nurses" is talking about the Victorian era, and excludes (perhaps not explicitly enough) such primitives as "non-technological societies". Additionally, since the high mortality rates in "non-technological" societies are due to infanticide one can hardly use those rates to excuse infanticide!

In primitive societies, nursing occurs for the sexual arousal of the mother, not the child's needs. In more advanced societies (say, Victorian era) nursing is considered dirty and foisted off on complete strangers.

From Evolution of Childrearing (Chapter 8):

“ The wetnurse herself was usually an infanticidal mother. The common practice was to require that she get rid of her own baby in order to nurse the stranger - termed "a life for a life" by parents in the past.215 Montaigne laments "Every day we snatch children from the arms of their mothers and put our own in their charge for a very small payment."216 Society thought this system fair, since "by the sacrifice of the infant of the poor woman, the offspring of the wealthy will be preserved."217 It is not surprising, then, that wetnurses were universally described as "vicious, slothful and inclined to drunkenness,"218 "debauched, indolent, superstitious,"219 guilty of "gross negligence...leaving babies...unattended when helping with the harvest...crawling or falling into the fire and being attacked by animals, especially pigs,"220 "hung from a nail like a bundle of old clothes...the unfortunate one remains thus crucified [with] a purple face and violently compressed chest."221 The wetnurses' superstitions included a belief "in favor of cradle cap and of human wastes, which were thought to have therapeutic value,"222 so infants were rarely washed and lived in their own feces and urine for their entire time at nurse: "Infants sat in animal and human filth, were suspended on a hook in unchanged swaddling bands or were slung from the rafters in an improvised hammock...their mouths crammed with rotting rags."223 Even live-in wetnurses were described as unfeeling:

When he cried she used to shake him-when she washed him she used to stuff the sponge in his little mouth-push her finger (beast!) in his little throat-say she hated the child, wished he were dead-used to let him lie on the floor screaming while she sat quietly by and said screams did not annoy her...224

Complaints by physicians that wetnurses let infants die of simple neglect were legion: "While the women attend to the vineyards, the infant remains alone...swaddled to a board and suspended from a hook on the wall...crying and hungry in putrid diapers. Often the child cries so hard it ends up with a hernia...turkeys peck out the eyes of a child...or they fall into a fire, or drown in pails left carelessly on doorsteps."225 Children were described as being "kept ragged and bare, sickly and starved...in terror of their nurse, who handed out blows and vituperation freely" or who "tied them up by the shoulders and wrists with ragged ends of sheets...face down on the floor...to protect them from injuring themselves while she was away...Never played with or cuddled...it is a holiday when they are taken for a walk around the room by the nurses..."226 Infants who are sent to "killing nurses" are described as being fed while the nurse croons, "Cry no more! Soon you will go, deté drago, soon...'Tis truly better that you go, dear infant...onto the lap of Virgin Mary, Mother of Jesus."227 The destructive Mother of Jesus, who gave birth for him to be sacrificed, was never far away from the child. It is no wonder that well into the nineteenth century many areas had a two-thirds mortality rate of infants sent to wetnurse.228

 ”

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 6.43 (talk • contribs)

Problems with this. You're using shoddy scholarship to try to back up an unprovable claim. De Mause provides no analysis or discussion of his sources, merely a catalog of horrific quotes. We cannot tell the context, nor can we take them as representative. THe most they prove is that, in the early modern and modern periods (there's nothing here before the 17th c. I checked the citations), some wetnurses may have been infanticidal and were most likely abusive. There is nothing to support your assertions of this type of behavior as a norm or even a trend. Anybody can go through books and pick out quotes (even totally out of context) to make an argument. Since de Mause's work is criminally lax in scholarship, I suggest you try to use better sources. J Hofmann Kemp

Are you also going to accuse Noam Chomsky of being "criminally lax in scholarship" because he doesn't provide full context with his 1000-per book quotes? There are simply too many quotes for it to be possible to provide full context, but then you're not interested in being reasonable, only in defending your position at all costs. – Ark —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ark (talk • contribs)

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Just re-read "A Modest Proposal," and could see absolutely nothing that referred to rotting corpses of babies in the streets. The only reference was to children accompanying their mothers begging. This certainly makes me question the veracity of other statements in this article. Moreover, Swift was born at the time of a particularly virulent wave of the plague ... even if there were piles of corpses in his memory, I'd be hard pressed not to wonder if these were not the result of plague or epidemic -- both of which were common in Early Modern cities. Either way, Swift is certainly not Victorian, which is also something the article implied. J Hofmann Kemp 12:28 Jul 24, 2002 (PDT)

My fault for the Swift ref, I took it out.
As for "plagues and epidemics", they make a useful cover for infanticide. My impression is the Victorians were infanticidal. It is a reasonable impression (for fuck's sake; Nazi Germany was infanticidal) and unless someone comes up with a specific period when parents stopped being infanticidal, I'll trust my impressions over the protests of some jerk living in denial.
I see no reason why I should work harder on this article than my lazy opponents just because the majority of people are idiots similarly living in denial. I am dealing with morons who refuse to accept that incest, infanticide and child abuse have EVER existed despite the massive amounts of evidence to the contrary. So when these morons grudgingly admit that these things did happen at specific points in time and in specific places, that simply isn't fucking good enough for me. I don't accept the judgement of idiots. So if no one here is reasonably intelligent, educated and open-minded, I'll say what conclusions can be supported from the evidence (which I don't feel the least need to spell out to you lazy bums). – Ark —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ark (talk • contribs)
Hi Ark,
I have only been here at Wikipedia for a few months but I have found most people here to be pretty open minded when confronted with hard evidence. Can you give me a few clues or a summary of what you remember of the evidence so I can search for similar sources online?
BTW I would appreciate it if you could keep the obscenities down as my niece and nephew (who are minors) might join me here occasionally for homework research, composition practice, etc.
Thanks! user:mirwin

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[3] This might be a useful source. Unfortunately only an outline is available at this link. Chapter 30 addresses infanticide in a region of China. user:mirwin

Another fishy thing: In all the imprecations cast against wetnurses, there is no notice taken that Breastfeeding women don't get pregnant and that they can feed more than one infant. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ortolan88 (talk • contribs)
Which only means they'd have more than one infant they were wetnursing at one time. None of them need be their own. Above all, the milk-production capacity of a woman is finite. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ark (talk • contribs)

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I took this out until it can be verified, mostly because of my objections raised above. I am very uncomfortable relying on the very questionable work of what appears to be one social scientist -- especially one whose work is not really accepted by the mainstream.

Although infanticide became a capital offense in Roman law in 374 CE, offenders were rarely if ever prosecuted. The practice of infanticide was still widespread throughout the Middle Ages and the Victorian Era. Application of the law only started in the 1800s, and despite this, the rotting corpses of babies were a common sight in the sewers and dungheaps of large cities. As time passed, the methods of infanticide became more involved because societies started to recognize it as an abhorrent practice. One common method of infanticide involved sending children out to a wet-nurse known for killing children and then not paying the nurse the agreed upon amount for the upkeep of the child. A related form of indirect infanticide was known as baby farming and involved paying third parties for intentional neglect leading to the death of infants.

J Hofmann Kemp

No, you took it out because you can't accept that infanticide occurred so close to the modern era. It makes you uncomfortable that you can't dismiss the entire thing to the grey mists at the dawn of human history.
The wet-nurse thing was obviously referring to the Victorian era, so counter-examples from hunter-gatherer tribes are not welcome.-- Ark —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ark (talk • contribs)
No, Ark -- I am fully aware that we live in a society where people do horrible things to children. I am also aware that this has long been the case. There are plenty of records out there for at least the Victorian area on things like the treatment of children in workhouses, and they clearly indicate widespread abuse of minors and women. I removed what I did because I re-read Swift and the deMause article you used as sources. Unfortunately, there seems to have been a lot of stuff quoted out of context. Some of the sources, like Philippe Ariés, I've read -- he has written brilliant history, well-documented and respected. He's also written psychohistory which is mostly supposition based on scant evidence. If you want things to stay unchallenged, you've got to make sure they have recognizable merit. J Hofmann Kemp
Hi, Ark. Welcome back. Your contribution to this subject has the potential to be very valuable. Also, bear in mind that how you present yourself in the talk pages makes a strong impression on others. We are impressed with solid scholarship, but we also enjoy a cordial atmosphere.
You may not be aware that phrases like "you can't accept" or "you can't dismiss" are taken personally. Now, if you and I were talking on the phone (or better, in person), it would be easy for me to perceive the gentle spirit behind the words. But, alas, we get only the bare text here.
I myself am very much against infanticide and child abuse, so anything you can do to expose these crimes in the article pages would be welcome to me. Let's discuss what we can each do to help each other make excellent articles on such worthy topics. Ed Poor 12:01 Aug 13, 2002 (PDT)
Hi Ed,
I ran a google.com advanced search on keywords (roman infanticide opium) Wikipedia came up at the top and the other links were pretty weak.
[4] Mentions the method of smearing a mother's breast with opium but cites it as in use among the upper classes of India. No mention of Rome. This makes me wonder if we have introduced an error in this statement:
"A practice described in Roman texts was to smear the breast with opium residue so that a nursing baby would die with no outward cause." If the Roman texts are describing a practice in India then perhaps we should say so. It would be nice if we had citations for the Roman texts and English translations. user:mirwin

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Found Lloyd Demause, "Foundations of Psychohistory", online at: [5] On page 26,

“ The history of infanticide in the West has yet to be written, and I shall not attempt it here. But enough is already known to establish that, contrary to the usual assumption that it is an Eastern rather than a Western problem, infanticide of both legitimate and illegitimate children was a regular practice of antiquity, that the killing of legitimate children was only slowly reduced during the Middle Ages, and that illegitimate children continued regularly to be killed right up into the nineteenth century.(110) ”

A lot of references at 110. For someone who is not going to attempt the history "here", he sure manages a lot of gory detail in the next couple of pages. user:mirwin

Did you note that most of his primary sources were read in translation, and that most of his secondary sources were from before 1940? Also, most of the primary source examples I've seen from this work are taken as representative of a society, when some of them (for example, the stuff about the dauphin, for instance) may well not have been. One has to remember that some people (Suetonius, for example) wrote to both discredit and to scandalize -- if the population at large were to disapprove, then should we take the reported actions as a norm? This is why I think we need to look beyond deMause for evidence to support Ark's arguments. De Mause is only one of thousands of people writing on child abuse and infanticide. Surely there must be other contemporary scholars out there? As an historian, I can see great gaping holes in deMause's use of sources. It doesn't make him wrong, but it certainly sets off warning bells -- if the scholarship doesn't stand up, then are the conclusions he draws really proven?
As to the dauphin thing -- if it's what I think it is, it's the primary source for a book by Philippe Ariés -- de Mause has basically taken the same passages (possibly from A's book without reading the whole) and recycled them. IIRC, the dauphin in question was the future Louis XIII. The book also discussed his toilet training in great detail. The problem is, this one record (from an observer, not the main subject) was not only used to draw a complex psychological portrait of the king. Moreover, much of what was said about Louis' childhood was assumed to have been the norm for children of the time -- which is kind of odd, considering that most people looking for social norms do not look at one person -- let alone the person at the top of the social pyramid -- and assume that it's normal. 'nuff said. J Hofmann Kemp
Ms. Kemp, you make some excellent points. I will attempt to keep them in mind as I look for alternate sources to augment our arguments. user:mirwin

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[6] This is an applicable discussion of 5 primary Greek sources. The author argues strongly that the evidence does not support strong conclusions that infanticide practices involving birth defects were uniform and widespread. On the contrary, the discussion points out many reasons to suspect/conclude that many infants with abnormal development or defects survived to productive adult status. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mirwin (talk • contribs)

That's useful for Greek societies, but there are quite a few other cultures involved here. I remember from some folklore classes that in one culture, central African IIRC, twins were regarded as unlucky and were thus usually killed at birth. The "real" answer seems to be that many, many different factors came into play. -- April
To counter the argument, the following four references cited in that article that Mirwin points to support the concept that infanticide of children with birth defect was common in ancient Greece:
  • D.W. Amundsen, 'Medicine and the Birth of Defective Children: Approaches of the Ancient World', in Euthanasia and the Newborn: Conflicts Regarding Saving Lives, Philosophy and Medicine 24, ed. R. McMillan et al. (Dordrecht 1987) 10, 13
  • P. Carrick, Medical Ethics in Antiquity: Philosophical Perspectives on Abortion and Euthanasia (Dordrecht 1985) 102
  • E. Eyben, 'Family Planning in Graeco-Roman Antiquity', AncSoc 11/12 (1980/1981) 15, 35
  • W.L. Langer, 'Infanticide: A Historical Survey', History of Childhood Quarterly 1 (1974) 353-4.
The article itself doesn't argue against defect as a reason for infanticide, just that it did not occur in all or most cases. —Preceding unsigned comment added by -- April (talk • contribs)
Agreed. This is a better summary than the one I provided. user:mirwin

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[7] "Determining the sex of infanticide victims from the Late Roman era through ancient DNA analysis"

This synopsis describes archeological evidence that infanticide occurred in Rome and in this case was sex and perhaps commerce linked. Again it is a single instance with no way to quantify societal acceptance, practice or trends. user:mirwin

[8] This site looks like a pretty balanced treatment of information from various sources regarding infanticide in the Roman empire. It has translations of quotes from primary sources and some discussion of the societal context. Mixed implications. It also has a bibliography that is somewhat contemporary, ranging from 1966 to 1989.

My impression of its overall take is that infanticide occurred routinely and regularly but was not a popular or prevailing trend. It discusses a law that intended to incentivize the ruling class with rapid advancement for more kids, but the kids only had to survive eight or nine days. It also vaguely discusses some attempted epigraphics, demographics, and statistics and provides sources. user:mirwin

As an admitted non-expert in the field, what bothers me most about Ark's contribution is the following: (a) His contributions are all taken from the same single source, and that, as JHK points out, is a secondary, not a primary source. That's not background research, that's dogmatic upholding of one author's claims. (b) He has presumed only one explanation for various situations, where several have been proposed, and apparently does not wish any coverage given to opposing views. That's against the NPOV policy. (c) He uses name-calling, baseless accusations, and downright rudeness in dealing with fellow contributors, whose sole fault seems to be editing his articles or objecting to his points. That's against Wikipetiquette. Thus, if Ark feels that his viewpoint is not being adequately represented, I suggest he (a) unearth other sources, preferably primary ones, in its defense; (b) allow space for contrary positions to be included in articles without complaining or removing it; (c) use reasonable courtesy in discussing the proper balance of elements in the article. That is, I think, a more productive approach. —Preceding unsigned comment added by -- April (talk • contribs)

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Reverted back to a non-babies piled in the streets, wetnursing is infanticidal version until we can actually see some hard evidence. Just some actual sources other than deMause (or something based on deMause). Again, this is not because I don't believe infanticide didn't exist, but that I don't see evidence that it was as normal as was implied. My analogy -- 20-odd people were arrested last week for being part of a pedophile pornography ring. More upsetting to me was the fact that many of these people were the parents of the children being subjected to sexual abuse -- and they were apparently profiting from it financially. Many of these parents were in the US, but some were in other countries. The kind of reasoning so far demonstrated in the article might conclude that more Americans abuse their children in this way than do parents in other countries. Or that parents with access to the internet are more likely to be abusers. Or, considering the large number of abductions, rape, other sexual abuse, and sometimes killings of children present in the news over the past few months, sexual abuse of children is the norm in western society. I can't prove it, of course, but I think that that is probably NOT the case, i.e., it is not the norm, nor is it normative. However, it is certainly something of which we should be aware, and to which we as a society should respond and remedy. That latter, though, is my own opinion, and possibly not appropriate for an article. J Hofmann Kemp

I am very disturbed by the number of times the phrase "non-Western" is creeping into this discussion. It seems as if someone is trying to argue here that there is a kind of "moral unfitness" of non-Westerners to raise children; an encyclopedia is definitely not the place for such arguments to be made, and it's very far from NPOV. The sad fact is that infanticide has taken place in all cultures, and the prevalence of it has been tied more to the level of technology than to any East/West divide. If "non-technological" is meant, why not use that? -- April
The problem of aborting females or killing girl babies (in so far as it actually exists) does seem to exist primarily in India and China, see The World; Modern Asia's Anomaly: The Girls Who Don't Get Born User:Fredbauder
The abstract only addresses abortion. Perhaps this paragraph should be relocated to abortion. The USA as a whole does not currently consider legal abortions infanticide. I am uncertain regarding prevailing English speaking attitudes. The article already incorporates this minority view by the reference link to abortion in the see also list. user:mirwin

From a previous version:

There are well-documented accounts of infanticide performed by hospital personnel in China immediately upon the birth of an out-of-quota child, to enforce the government's one child policy. The practice, although required by the government, is not widespread as over-quota mothers usually are forced to have an abortion long before bringing the baby to term. China requires all women of child-bearing age to take pregnancy tests at government clinics every 3 months.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Ed Poor (talk • contribs)

If this can be verified (I would accept a New York Times article reporting this) it needs to be in the article. If not official policy then it is simply crime in China. The implication that it is official government policy is not acceptable in the absence of some evidence. I doubt very much any evidence exists. My own hypothesis is that corruption expains any incidents as local officials try illegally to meet centrally issued quotas. User:Fredbauder
The New York Times may be an impractical source. I, for one, do not have a subscription. If multiple others do, then it is obviously very practical. 8) mirwin 18:05 Aug 16, 2002 (PDT)
A subscription to current articles is free, although one may also subscribe to a complete copy (including ads, etc) which is not free. The rub is articles more than 2 weeks old which cast $2.95 for the full text, although an abstract is free. BTW look for a piece next week on ABC evening new early next week on female infanticide. User:Fredbauder

[edit] Page break (arbitrary)

This sentence, from the opening paragraph, is hard to read:

In nearly all past societies certain forms of infanticide were considered proper, whereas in most modern societies the practice is considered immoral and criminal.

It seems to be trying to contrast past and present attitudes toward infanticide, saying that it was a lot more acceptable in the past but that it's widely condemned now.

Can anyone think of a better, more clear way to express this? --Ed Poor

Not to be argumentative, but I'd like to see some support that the decline of infanticide was paralleled by the rise in Christianity. That's a pretty strong statement, and given that no statistics are available from those times, it seems to be extremely subjective and non-neutral. -- April 21:38 Jan 9, 2003 (UTC)

[edit] 2003 page break (arbitrary)

How come this article doesn't mention that the Jews were the only ancient people to be opposed to infanticide? (I've never heard the law that if a child dies within thirty days in Judaism its considered a miscarriage. In fact it makes no sense at all because circumcision is performed on the eighth day, meaning the covenant of the child with God is solidified) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.237.29.78 (talk • contribs)

[edit] Wet Nurse Infanticide Question

Seems doubtful to me the only experience of a wet nurse culture in recent times that I personally have is Saudi Arabia where many old Saudi's will refer to their milk brothe. The milk brother is the son of the wet nurse and is regarded as being equivalent to a matrilineal brother. I would have thought that infanticide would only be needed in a nutrition poor society.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Wordy (talk • contribs) [October 2004]

[edit] Customs

An editor summarized,

You can't "customarily" kill your firstborn, since you can only do it once.

regarding this sentence

In the Solomon Islands, some people customarily kill the first-born child -- and then adopt a child from another island, a practice that suggests that the causes of infanticide are more complex.

Am not an anthropologist, but aren't customs societal mores rather than personal habits, and aren't many of them performed only once in a lifetime? For example, it is customary in the west for first-time brides to wear white dresses. Cheers, -Willmcw 09:53, May 8, 2005 (UTC)

Gmaxwell rewrote it to something more appropriate, for which I thank him. I meant that "customarily" generally means "habitually" rather than "according to custom". I didn't think the word was adding much, but it's fair enough to add it as Gmaxwell has. Grace Note 06:03, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Brieskow-Finkenheerd case

Should we add details of the find in Brieskow-Finkenheerd? It would appear to be one of the largest-scale infanticide cases known. BBC News. violet/riga (t) 10:23, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Links

Are we sure we want to link to the Pagans, Christianity and Infanticide article? The article is poorly written and inflammitory, also the subject is already covered in the "overview of ancient.." link.

Here are a couple of examples of what I am talking about;

"To Christians, the infant had value. Whereas pagans placed no value on infant life, Christians treated them as human beings. They viewed infanticide as the murder of a human being, not a convenient tool to rid society of excess females and perceived weaklings."

"Yet so long as Christianity was an illegal religion, persecuted by the same culture that murdered their own babies, it had little chance of enacting policies against infanticide."

Jocosetad 17:40, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

This sounds like viewpoint discrimination. Wikipedia links to articles from many different perspectives and one that appreciates Christianity's role in outlawing infanticide is hardly out of bounds. If you are worried about offending "pagans," the article clearly refers to pagans of ancient Rome and Greece who did tolerate and often encouraged infanticide. I am putting it back in. Layman 01:03, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Non-human infanticide

I find it interesting that this article almost completely neglects non-human infanticide, especially that research done concerning infanticide in rodents and non-human primates. Some of the most seminal work on the topic has been done by researchers studying these animals. No mention is made of the sexual selection hypothesis, the genetic aspect of infanticidal tendencies, or even the research done in recent years on "deferred" infanticde in humans. The study of such an apparently aberent behavior involves decidedly more than human mothers killing their infants. For example, the sexual selection hypothesis (developed studying Hanuman langurs) expects that females will not kill infants, but rather that males will be the perpetrators, because a male will benefit (reproductively) if he kills an infant which is not his. I would recommend anyone interested in the topic look for books by Glenn Hausfater, Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, or Carl P. van Schaik. Although they are primatologists, each has done interesting research on the subject and edited several well developed volumes that cover a range of research, from rodents to humans.

Tiggy


I agree with Tiggy that expansion is needed. I would also VERY much appreciate citation as infanticide by dolphins of all creatures seems just a bit mindblowing to some of us. Frankly it seems kinda unbelievable.

Pstanton 00:59, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pro-infanticide

This article needs a better description of the philosophical issues surrounding infanticide (i.e., personal identity), and should have at least some mention of the arguments of Stephen Pinker and Michael Tooley. KSchutte 06:36, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] tacitus

bit of a slanted portrayal of his opinion on the practice. while it's true that his description of the jewish practice follows on a catalogue of Reasons Why We Hate Jews, there's a tamen, 'but/however' in between; it's not an uninterrupted conclusion. he also uses nearly the same language in the germania, in a positive context (a description of virtues, chiefly chastity and marital fidelity, set up in contrast to those of rome in his time), as an uninterrupted conclusion. the view that he finds the prohibition of infanticide perverse and disgusting certainly exists, but so does the view that the sentence in the histories is actually a grudging compliment (Salo Baron held it, for example). better, i think, just to provide the facts (including the undisputed one that he finds it remarkable—he makes no such comment on any other nations or tribes) and let people form their own opinions on how exactly he intended it. 65.95.37.193 18:56, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Women's rights?

How is the prohibition an improvement of that? Arrow740 08:10, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Right to live for women babies. --Aminz 08:18, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
Women babies constitute a very tiny percentage of the population. Arrow740 22:45, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
Female babies consitute roughly half the infants born. In any case, the decree that women were not be killed was based on the premise that women were just as honorable as men.Bless sins 00:30, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
Removed as a POV claim from a sub-par source. Beit Or 21:19, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Scope of article

Rather disappointing to see a one line mention that it occurs in other species. Should this article should be moved to human infanticide or infanticide in human culture and a full biological treatment of infanticide in all animals be given, or should such as article be treated somewhere like infanticide (zoology). Biologists have borrowed the word from its normal use, and readers are probably more likely to expect an article on humans rather than animals in general. It is a term that applies to any other animal as well as humans, but there's not going to be as much content at least for a good while, and this article did have the name first. The comparison with cannibalism and cannibalism (zoology) is close, so I'll probably follow that terminology should I get the section up to a size worthy of its own article. Leave your thoughts on the matter if you like. Richard001 02:34, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I would agree with you that the comparison is close, and the human info is what most readers would be looking for. So I Support creation of separate infanticide (zoology) when there is enough material. BrainyBabe 12:37, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
Oh, you've already created it.... BrainyBabe 12:38, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I plan to write a reasonable length article on the subject so I just went ahead and started a new one. There has been disagreement from User:Stemonitis at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions#Human focussed vs. general articles though, where I'm trying to get some guidelines created for issues like this. Richard001 01:13, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Infant euthanasia in the UK

The Infant euthanasia in the UK section seems to be incorrect. The reference link is broken, but other articles on the topic describe the Royal College as calling for debate on the topic, not endorsing a particular position. Athenastreet 15:44, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

If a reference only relies on an external link, and it is broken, feel free to challenge the material or change it to agree with other sources, just be sure to provide them. Richard001 22:56, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Throughout history section

I have removed "Abortion has a similar history." from the end of the first paragraph. There is no citation for the comparison, thus it is [improper synthesis?]. More to the point, this article is about intentionally killing an infant. Mdbrownmsw 17:56, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Female infanticide in pre-Islamic Arabia

I'm not muslim (if any reader is he/she may confirm), but I remember I once read there's a hadith (oral tradition stories about Muhammad's sayings and deeds) about prophet Muhammad once catching a man just seconds from interring (alive) his just-born daughter. The prophet asked him what crime had the girl committed to deserve the death penalty, to which the man couldn't answer. Then the prophet took that girl and forced that man to raise her, stating that it was the previous pagan way to kill baby-girls but not the desire of Allah. If there indeed exists this hadith then it proves 2 things: first, female infanticide did exist and was more or less widespread in ancient Arabia. Second, after Islam it was proscribed, at least legally. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 148.244.69.177 (talk) 16:10, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Strange Redirect

I just typed in "I killed your baby" into Search as a joke, only to have this come up. Do we really need this redirect? microchip08 (talk) 19:57, 6 December 2007 (UTC).

Any variation of this I tried took me to a search page. I am adding a note to the user's talk page asking for clarification. - Mdbrownmsw (talk) 13:56, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
Wait, now I found it. I'll speedy it. Thanks. - Mdbrownmsw (talk) 13:58, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
Template now deleted. Don't understand why? microchip08 (talk) 08:51, 13 December 2007 (UTC).
My bad. I listed it as an AfD, needed to be a RfD. Fixed it. - Mdsummermsw (talk) 13:30, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Infanticide in the law

I'd be interested in knowing whether Infanticide is legally and practically (e.g. penalties imposed) different from murder in both developed and developing countries. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.113.248.20 (talk) 21:26, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Moved from Infanticide to Human Infanticide

This move, without discussion, is odd.

The editor asks "Why should it just be titled "Infanticide" when it only detals Huamn Infanticide?" The answer is simple: "Human Infanticide" is redundant.

"Infanticide is the practice of someone intentionally causing the death of an infant." Next, link to Infant: "In basic English usage, an infant is defined as a human child at the youngest stage of life..." "Human Infanticide" is similar to "Royal Regicide". Pending further discussion to the contrary, I'll move this back in a few days. - Mdsummermsw (talk) 12:57, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Add a notable source

I have just been reverted by User:Otolemur crassicaudatus who wrote in edit summary: "non notable anthropologist, do not deserve to be quoted, WP:UNDUE."

In fact, there are very few scholars who have published books on infanticide. One of these is Infanticide and the Value of Life in which Williamson contributed with a chapter. As far as I can tell, Larry S. Milner's book is the most complete on infanticide, and he cites the below quotation by Williamson, an anthropologist from the American Museum of Natural History, as an epigraph for his 629-page book:

Infanticide has been practiced on every continent and by people on every level of cultural complexity, from hunter gatherers to high civilizations, including our own ancestors. Rather than being an exception, then, it has been the rule.[1]

If this is not a RS, please cite a RS as a rebuttal to the above claim. —Cesar Tort 23:57, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

What exactly is a 'notable' anthropologist supposed to be? One that has their own article on Wikipedia? If so it might well be impossible to quote anybody in this article. I quoted both Glenn Hausfater and Stephen Emlen in the animal oriented infanticide article, and I'd probably struggle to find reliable sources to write about them. Richard001 (talk) 00:26, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
So do you think that it's OK to quote Williamson (see above) in the article? It's a well-known fact for academic researchers of infanticide that the subject is almost ignored. Look at the index of major treatises. I'd be all too glad to include the POV of anyone who refutes Williamson or the stats I added in the article. Believe me. However, are there any of them? If no valid reason is given, I think I'll revert. —Cesar Tort 02:03, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Present-day Western infanticide?

I myself know nothing about this subject except that it does indeed happen (often in teenage mothers), and I'm wondering why I see no mention of it at all in this article. If someone knows anything about it, perhaps they might put in a section about it. Thanks, --Iamthedeus (talk) 01:38, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Good idea, but estimates of infanticide among present-day, Western cultures (teenage mothers, etc.) is not as frequent as, say, infanticide among the tribes: as can be seen in the article's stats. The idea is to focus first on cultures where infanticide was not uncommon, nor an aberration to a society's standards. —Cesar Tort 09:28, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
Granted, but could not both be covered? I'm not saying to get rid of what's here and replace it solely with an account of present-day Western infanticide, but rather I'm suggesting that it be at least mentioned, if not covered in some depth, in addition to what is already addressed in the article (that is, cultures where infanticide was not uncommon, as you said). —Iamthedeus (talk) 18:22, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
There's already a "Present day" section in the article which touches the subject of infanticide in the West and could be expanded. —Cesar Tort 18:29, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
Bus as you say, it could be expanded. The "Present day" section only mentions Western present-day infanticide in one sentence (forgetting the bits about infant euthanasia): "The practice has become less common in the Western world". It would be really good if this could be elaborated upon; I would do it myself, but as I mentioned earlier, I know next to nothing about the subject. —Iamthedeus (talk) 21:12, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
I do have some sources. But I'll add first data on more common infanticide. —Cesar Tort 21:20, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
Thank you. —Iamthedeus (talk) 21:48, 5 April 2008 (UTC)