qtiiroga: a Mexican municipio — brajshd 



73 



mately half of the women married between the 

 ages of 15 and 18 inclusively, and about three- 

 quarters (607) married at ages from 14 to 21. 

 The cases of early marriage were 1 at 12, 5 at 13, 

 47 at 14, and 67 at 15 years. There were only 19 

 marriages at 35 or older. As has been pointed 

 out in connection with the age of the population, 

 most exact ages cannot be accepted at face value, 

 but the figures given above certainly represent the 

 trends that obtain in Quiroga. 



The 739 mothers had a total of 3,824 children. 

 This was an average of 5.17 children per mother. 

 The range in number of children per mother was 

 from 1 to 17, with 3 being the modal number, and 

 the median faUing exactly between 4 and 5 children 

 per mother. The average per mother ranged from 

 a low of 3.87 in the ranchos, through 5.01 in cuartel 

 I, 5.15 in cuartel III, and 5.69 in cuartel II, to 

 6.36 in cuartel IV. It is interesting that the divi- 

 sion with the fewest mothers had the highest 

 average, and the division with the most mothers 

 had the lowest average. 



Mortality among the children born to Quiroga 

 mothers was very high, amounting to 36.4 percent. 

 This and the succeeding data are based on informa- 

 tion from the town of Quiroga alone, since the 

 census taker in the ranchos evidently made a 

 mistake and submitted returns that would indicate 

 that no children ever died in the ranchos, which is 

 quite contrary to fact. This mortality is not quite 

 that of children alone, since the data merely in- 

 dicate ofi'spring who died before the mother. 

 There were 51 mothers who were 60 years or older, 

 and it is expectable that some of their grown 

 children would die. However, these 51 old 

 mothers did not have enough mortahty among 

 their offspring to materially affect our percentages. 

 We selected the age of 60 as a critical one for com- 

 ment because the offspring of mothers of this age 

 would be 45 years old or younger, and in Mexico 

 (as of tables of 1930) if a child reaches the age of 

 2 he can expect to hve to the age of 46, and if he is 

 still ahve at the age of 6 he can expect to hve to 

 the age of 53; at 10 the expectancy is to live to 

 54, and at 12 the expectancy is to live to 55 years 

 of age. Of the mothers, 355 lost children, which is 

 an average of 3.25 per mother. In other words, 

 62.28 percent of the mothers in Quiroga town 

 lost one or more children. The total number of 

 offspring who died was 1,155, and the range was 

 from 1 to 15 deaths per mother. The modal 



number of deaths was one, and the median was 

 four deaths. The average of children's deaths 

 per mother was lowest in cuartel I (2.5), and was 

 highest in cuartel IV (3.84). There is a definite 

 correlation between larger famihes and more 

 deaths. 



Utilizing all possible data in the 1940 census we 

 were able to come to some tentative conclusions 

 concerning lapse between marriage and the bearing 

 of the first child, and concerning the duration of 

 the bearing period. There were data on lapse for 

 approximately half (410) of the women. Approxi- 

 mately 71 percent (291) bore their first child within 

 the first year after marriage, and 90 percent had 

 their first child within the first 3 years of marriage. 

 A few individuals (19) had their first child after 

 6 years or longer of marriage — the extreme case 

 was in the 17th year. The most common spacing 

 of children is at approximately 2-year intervals, 

 and next in frequency are 1- and 3-year intervals. 

 The bearing age ranged from 15 to 52, but more 

 than one-half of the children were borne by women 

 30 or younger, and three-fourths were borne by 

 women under 36 years of age. Approximately 

 10 percent of the children were borne by women 

 who were 40 or older. The highest bearing period 

 seems to be from 18 to 35. Correlative material 

 was derived from the 1945 list of births m Quiroga. 

 Of the 226 couples who had children in that year, 

 the range in age of the husbands was 19 to 62 

 with a median of 32, and the range in age of the 

 wives was 16 to 45 with a median of 26. The 

 women under 36 bore 90 percent of the babies born 

 in 1945. An interesting study was afforded by the 

 age differences in these 226 couples. Six of the 

 couples were of the same age; in 12 couples the 

 age of one or the other partner was unknown; in 

 18 couples the woman was older than the man; 

 and in the remaining 190 cases the man was the 

 older. The older men ranged from one to 37 

 years older than their spouses, with a median of 5 

 years and a mean of 6.3 years difference. 



DEATHS 



RECORDED DEATHS IN MUNICIPALITY OF QUIROGA 



The Adas de Defuncion or death records are 

 among the most complete and informative of the 

 records in the office of civil registry. Among the 

 items of information given on the form in use at 

 present are: Name, age, nationality, civil status. 



