The importance of extremes: The social implications of intra-household variation in child mortality
Murray Last
Social Science and Medicine 35(6): 799-810
1992
ISSN/ISBN: 0277-9536 DOI: 10.1016/0277-9536(92)90080-aDocument Number: 322676
The extreme variation in child-rearing among women of the same polygynous household raises questions about the factors involved in child mortality and the social processes that magnify that variation. The extremes may not seem significant statistically and indeed are not widely reported, yet it is precisely the extremes of experience that generate the theories that alter action most. The spectacle of one wife having 90% of her children alive while her co-wife has 90% dead exerts enormous influence not only on people's beliefs but also on their practical responses in the face of the spectre of serial child death. A high divorce rate, wide inequalities among women and marriage strategies that favour large, rich households are some of the consequences; beliefs in repeatedly returning children and changelings focus blame on the children, while a premium is put on very early diagnosis and often drastic remedial action. Extreme suffering, though seldom spoken aloud, generates its own logic, its own corpus of relevant data.