In the South, or the Chesapeake, “women could anticipate a life consumed with childbearing. The average wife experienced pregnancies every two years” (57). Having children out of wedlock was also very common in the south because of the imbalance in the ratio of men to women. There was way more men then women so women did not stay single very long and most of the time they were very young. Getting married as early as 20 years old, women in the Chesapeake became widows very early in their life seeming as their husbands were around twice their age. This lifestyle for women was very opposite than the lifestyle women in the North had. “In New England, …more immigrants arrived with family members where death rates declined more quickly, family structure
