On 5 Jul 2006 at 2:05, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Ages 16+ through 23: child bearing years along with child rearing years. > Assuming a mandated 9 month pregnancy, 3 months "down time" after > pregnancy, plus an addition 3 months of time trying to "catch with > child", an average of 15 months per child over a period of 75 months for > 5 children. This is a touch over 6 years time. So call it 7 years to > account for variances and so forth.
That many children over that short a time (most pre-modern cultures average two+ years between children) is likely to kill or chronically injure quite a significant percentage of the mothers, unless they have good healing technology or magic. I suppose they'd end up doing all those less physical tasks that are too high status for men, but it still seems like a bad idea to me. Also, unless they eat very well (as in, like 20th the century West) 16 is probably a bit young to be starting breeding - it's likely to result in harder first pregnancies and women who are smaller than they would otherwise be. I'd train them as soldiers from 16-18 or so, use 'em in the army to about 23, and then put them in the reserve while they have their quota of children. By 30 or so they'll have met their child-bearing obligations, and can become officers or go into some sort of civilian management role. The other reason to do things this way is that young people tend to make better frontline soliders because they haven't learnt that they can die yet. Women who have gone through multiple pregnancies, and who friends have also done so are going to be all too aware of their mortaility. -- Rupert Boleyn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
