# When did we find out that sex = baby? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 11, 2006, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-we-find-out-that-sex-baby/356329 "2006-05-11T03:55:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Girl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7bcc69/32.png) [@Mighty\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Girl)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2006, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-we-find-out-that-sex-baby/356329/21 "2006-05-11T22:54:44Z")
G’durnit, that’s the book! I recognize the title. Thanks **pravnik**. I read the book in the 80’s, and it was possibly years older by then. I wonder if they still hold to this belief. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2006, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-we-find-out-that-sex-baby/356329/22 "2006-05-11T23:27:43Z")
> [@bup](#): > > As someone else in this thread mentioned in passing, it’s hard to imagine domestication of animals without understanding of this - you’re trying to get certain traits into offspring, and get rid of others. Dogs were domesticated - 30,000 years ago? It may well be that their beliefs about pregnancy were formed before they learned to domesticate animals. Even in contemporary America you can find people with long held relgiious beliefs about the way the world works that are directly contradicted by all evidence. And, as has been mentioned before, societies can come up with ingenious explainations for things, which in a world without the final authority of the scientific method, are just as believable as anything else. Remember, it wasn’t too long ago that we believed that maggots emerged spontaniously from garbage, based on the clear fact that if you put out a bunch of garbage, eventually maggots will appear. Plenty of evidence to work from, but still the wrong conclusion. Finally, things that make it a dead giveaway to us arn’t so obvious elsewhere. Familial resemblence isn’t so compelling in a fairly homogenous tribal setting. Timing isn’t such a giveaway when there is extended breastfeeding, malnutrition, and later puberty complicates things. ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2006, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-we-find-out-that-sex-baby/356329/23 "2006-05-12T00:01:08Z")
> [@Mighty\_Girl](#): > > G’durnit, that’s the book! I recognize the title. Thanks **pravnik**. I read the book in the 80’s, and it was possibly years older by then. I wonder if they still hold to this belief. Apparently they still do, or did fairly recently. Annette Weiner did ethnographic studies of the Trobriands between 1988 and 1993 with a particular focus on women’s role in culture, and she also made note of the belief. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2006, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-we-find-out-that-sex-baby/356329/24 "2006-05-12T06:46:50Z")
> [@Sattua](#): > > On the other hand, in one of the history courses I took (and I SO don’t have a cite… sorry, people) the professor claimed that in hunter-gatherer societies, a woman’s children tend to be 3-4 years apart. Whether it’s because of low body fat = no menses = no babies while she’s nursing, or just because new mothers often don’t feel like boinking, I don’t know. But apparently (again, no cite, me bad) it isn’t necessarily standard for a woman to be constantly pregnant. Did your professor state whether the births were 3-4 years apart, or the children were 3-4 years apart? We need to know that because infanticide was standard practice amongst HG groups, and any unwanted children were routinely killed. Children 3-4 years apart may well be indicative of births 2.5 years apart or even closer. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-we-find-out-that-sex-baby/356329.md?page=1)