In the previous chapter we established that women in Lugang married more than ten years earlier than Nijmegen women. In theory – and following Malthus’ implicit prediction that fertility is only regulated through marriage - this should result in a higher final parity. Before assessing whether or not this is manifested in the actual fertility, we first focus on another striking characteristic of preindustrial demography, namely infant mortality. By modern standards the chances of survival for newly born children in pre-modern societies were astonishingly low. Almost one quarter of infants did not reach their first birthday, and mortality remained high in childhood. From an economic point of view one might conclude that pre-industrial fertility was very inefficient. In order to reach a certain number of surviving children, many more births were necessary. From an emotional point of view some authors referred to this phenomenon as “the massacre of the innocents”.

The high death rates of the very young deserve attention in themselves because they highlight the economic conditions of life in the societies involved, the social differentiation within these societies, and the ‘deliberate’ choices made by the historical actors. Since infant mortality is a reflection of general mortality, more precisely the mortality of the most vulnerable members of society, its level also permits us to assess whether Malthus’ prediction on the prevalence of positive checks in Chinese society is valid. The existence of preventive checks in Nijmegen is already confirmed by our data on nuptiality. Do we also find evidence of positive checks in Lugang? According to the classic division of the world in two parts, mortality should be significantly higher in our Taiwanese city than in Nijmegen.

Positive checks thus may show in a high level of mortality, but can also have a very deliberate form. Remember that Malthus mentioned the “custom of exposing children”. James Lee and his collaborators also emphasized infanticide as one of the ways in which Chinese couples consciously regulated the number of their offspring. In their view, the gender-differentiated character of infant mortality provides us with a strong indication of ‘proactive’ behavior. For that reason the comparison between Nijmegen and Lugang will deal explicitly with possible differences in infant mortality between girls and boys.