1 Rates of prenuptial pregnancy in the Chesapeake colonies were as follows:
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Percent of First Births Within | |||
Place |
Cohort |
7 mos. |
8 mos. |
8.5 mos. |
9 mos. |
Somerset County, Md. |
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Immigrants |
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Somerset County, Md. |
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Natives |
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Middlesex County, Va. |
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Christ Church Parish |
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Gloucester County, Va. |
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Kingston Parish |
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Richmond County, Va. |
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Sources: Menard and Walsh, “Demography of Somerset County,” 23; Lois Green Carr and Lorena Walsh, “The Planter’s Wife: the Experience of White Women in Seventeenth Century Maryland,” WMQ3 34 (1977), 547-48; Daniel Scott Smith and Michael S. Hindus, “Prenuptial Pregnancy in America, 1640-1971: An Overview and Interpretation,” JIH 5 (1975), 537-70; Robert V. Wells, “Illegitimacy and Bridal Pregnancy in Colonial America,” in Peter Laslett et al., eds., Bastardy and Its Comparative History (Cambridge, 1980), 349-61; Lee Gladwin, “Tobacco and Sex: Factors Affecting Non-Marital Sexual Behavior in Colonial Virginia,” JSOCH 12 (1978), 57-78.