Re Anita Chaudhuri’s article (Whatever happened to middle age? The mysterious case of the disappearing life stage, 16 February), in the research that I did for my book, Not Too Old For That, I discovered that there was no concept of midlife until 1895, when the word was included in the dictionary for the first time, defined as “the part of life between youth and old age”.
Here’s what happened in that “part of life” for women – babies and mothering. In the 1800s, most women had around seven children and spent 17 years pregnant or breastfeeding, after which they were understandably weakened or disabled. They were likely dead by the time their children left home.
