My grandmother's mother died in childbirth after having 13 children. My grandmother told me that her father remarried solely for someone to "mind" the children. What that infers to me is that any subsequent remarriage during those days was a direct corolation of poor families that could not afford to hire someone to take care of their children and the older ones were not old enough for that responsibility,so they remarried for that purpose.

I also think that back during those days, the pendulum was far right and fathers more than likely got custody of the children in divorce situations as they were deemed to better bear the financial burden as most women didn't work back then and really didn't have as many rights as we enjoy today.

I think a lot of moms died in childbirth as TBogus said above...she made some very valid points

I only want to add one more: The age of Entitlement is upon us and the step parents of today not only have to deal with the BM's sense of entitlement but also the skids sense of Entitlement

~Always forgive your enemies...nothing annoys them so much~ Oscar Wilde

This is my thinking just from what I observed

1) The courts
2) The sense of entitlement that the children seem to have now a days
3) The ease and ability to file False Police Reports with no repercussion
4) The involvement of DFS when there is no threat - and no repercussions when a false one has been filed.
5) The inability for some parents to discipline their children out of fear of a response from the custodial parents/courts/DFS
6) The mentality of BM thinking they know what is best for HER children.
7) The sense of entitlement the courts give BM and their golden uterus when she decides not to work but wants an increase in child support
BM is not held up to the same accountability for providing for the children as the BF
9) PAS - and the fact that most courts still don't believe they exist.

I can go on and on.

Also back then children were usually produced to help with the farm or in the mines. They did not enjoy the "charmed" status that the golden uterus insists upon and dad feels guilted into providing.

I think a big difference is that having children 100 years ago did not entitle you to anything - you had to feed, clothe & support them without any financial assistance from the state.

Nowadays, there is a core group of people who deliberately keep having kids to get a bigger house, more benefits etc & see it as a lifestyle choice.

Kids weren't valued in the same way I think, they had to earn their keep, do as they were told & be grateful for what they got, so the stepparent wouldn't feel they were coming last in the family.

my great grandmother's mother married her sister's widower after her sister died. her sister had 7 kids with the guy and she had 6 for a grand total of 13. I know that they were extremely poor and i agree with the other posters that stepmothers back then were there to care for the children. my great grandmother then had 4 children as an adult and her husband died and they were thrown into even more severe poverty.. so, ya i think it was financial and to care for the kids. on my mom's side, my great granddad showed up out west one day as a middle aged man and its family rumor that he left a family back east.
i was talking to a girl in one of my classes a while ago about ss5. the girl is from the middle east and she said something like it is very good of me to care for my ss and let him live with me because stepmothers in "her country" would never allow that or take care of another woman's child. she was shocked that his mother isnt really in the picture. just thought that was interesting... different over - all cultural mentality about it all.

"if you don't have anything nice to say, then shut the fuck up."