From: richard@ex-parrot.com   
      
   On 15/11/2019 14:50, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:   
      
   > In the past, and to some degree today, it was assumed that if a   
   > marriage didn't produce a child then it was entirely the woman's fault.   
   > However, if a woman finds herself married to a man who is impotent or a   
   > strict homosexual, how is she to keep up the appearances? Getting help   
   > from the milkman is very risky, but there are at least two other men   
   > with the right Y chromosome that can help, her father-in-law or a   
   > brother-in-law. In either case the man would probably be anxious to   
   > keep it secret to preserve the honour of the family.   
      
   I dare say this did happen occasionally – anything that isn't actually   
   impossible probably happened occasionally – but I really can't see this   
   being a common occurrence.   
      
   First of all, I don't think the pressure to "keep up appearances" by   
   fathering a child was anything like as high as you suggest.   
   Historically, it was slightly unusual not have children, but in all but   
   the tiniest of hamlets there would have had childless couples.   
      
   In some cases this will have been because the couple never or only   
   rarely had sex.  And yes, sometimes this will have been because of   
   homosexuality or impotence, and also because it marriage of convenience   
   where neither party had any interest in sexual relations with the other.   
     Bear in mind that until the 20th century, a ordinary person could not   
   both bring in a living wage and do all the household chores including   
   cooking.  There simply weren't enough hours in the day.  An unmarried   
   member of the middle classes could take in a housekeeper or a maid, but   
   this was beyond the reach of the working classes.  Their choice was to   
   live with family, lodge or marry.  I'm sure many marriages were entered   
   into purely for convenience.   
      
   However, probably more often, couples were childless of reasons that   
   couldn't then be explained.  They were doing all the right things to   
   have children, but it never happened.  These days this would often be   
   understood as infertility, and treated accordingly, but before the mid   
   20th century, it was simple happenstance.  Or divine will if you were so   
   inclined.   
      
   Whatever the cause, although not the norm, it was not particularly   
   unusual for a couple to be childless.  I'm sure it would have been   
   subject to some gossip – in close-knit communities, everything is – but   
   I doubt there would have been too much social pressure to have children.   
     If there was pressure, it was most likely to be within the family,   
   probably from the husband.  I can well imagine a husband turning violent   
   because his wife consistently failed to become pregnant.  That happens   
   these days, and I'm sure it did in the past too.   
      
   If there was a pressure to become pregnant, I'm very sceptical the woman   
   would turn to her brother-in-law or father-in-law.  That means   
   explaining the problem to a close relative, who would probably take her   
   husband's side.  She might well turn to own brother or father for   
   support, but the taboo on incest would normally stop it from going   
   beyond that.  If a relative is involved, whether direct or in-law, and   
   whether as a confidant or as the real father, this involves them in a   
   scandalous secret that could endanger the mother and child's lives, were   
   it to become known.  Far better to involve someone who the family   
   doesn't often see.  Maybe she would confide in a friend that the rest of   
   the family don't know very well.  Better still, she might get pregnant   
   by someone passing through the area – an itinerant labourer, someone in   
   the area for a wedding, a visiting tradesman.  With luck, they'll never   
   be seen again and her secret is safe.   
      
   If the real father turns out to have the same Y-DNA haplotype as the   
   putative father, and assuming they're not the same person, I think it's   
   most likely they're very distant relatives.  Y-DNA only mutates slowly,   
   so unless the haplotype had only entered the area recently, even if the   
   haplotype is rare at a national level, there were probably hundreds or   
   thousands of men with the same Y-haplotype in the area, very likely with   
   many different surnames.  Before the advent of railways, it's quite   
   likely the real father came from the same broad area as the putative   
   father – even if the real father was someone passing through, he was   
   likely not from far afield.  That means an increased likelihood of   
   sharing the putative father's haplotype by coincidence.  If the authors   
   of the paper haven't properly taken this into account, this may   
   introduce a systematic bias of the sort you're describing.  I think an   
   unaccounted bias of this sort is far more likely than a significant   
   degree of fathering by in-laws as you suggest.  But we have no reason to   
   suppose any such error does exist.   
      
   Richard   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)