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It also puts a very different perspective on 1) why you always read in history books "so and so's third wife" and 2) the obsession with things like "child-bearing hips". Starting a family was downright hazardous; modern sensibilities are comparatively unburdened by those problems.

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> the obsession with things like "child-bearing hips"

I am unaware of this being a past obsession, do you have a source?

I thought it’s a modern meme. Oxford lists earliest use as 1910: https://www.oed.com/dictionary/childbearing-hips_n

The Venus of Willendorf (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_of_Willendorf) is a good example of the importance of hips (or generally - shapes) related to childbearing in representations of women

Might have been so obvious it need not have even been mentioned. Just like today, you wouldn’t say “I’m really looking for a healthy woman with an unmutilated face”.

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