Curious male-female ratio in Westeros

[Brandon Umber]

Small sample size.

Statistics really should be taught at school.

This.

[Ferocious Veldt Roarer]

That ratio means precisely nothing. The author wrote men and boys where he needed men and boys, and wrote women and girls where he needed women and girls in the story. (The appendixes are selective, too: you'll find there a shitload of sers, but scarcely a mention whether those have any mothers, aunts, sisters or daughters.)

[Lady Flandrensis]

It's fantasy. There are always more men than women. LOTR, anyone? Really, any popular fantasy I can think up.

GRRM needed a lot of men to kill. He doesn't kill named women off nearly as much.

[I'm the Party Pooper]

Small sample size.

Statistics really should be taught at school.

I don't think it's a size problem, certain distributions can be inferred with few elements.. the problem is that the sample is skewed rather than random

[The Marquis de Leech]

You forgot Walder Frey: 21 sons, 7 daughters.

[DamoDega]

Craster: 36 daughters, 0 sons

[Arya Weinergaryen]

Secret program of female infanticide? Not to be completely horrible, but it's not unheard of for certain cultures and certain times to kill off unwanted female offspring, even in wealthy families when times are not lean.

[I'm the Party Pooper]

Secret program of female infanticide? Not to be completely horrible, but it's not unheard of for certain cultures and certain times to kill off unwanted female offspring, even in wealthy families when times are not lean.

Agreeable, but it would seem more appropriate if properly hinted by GRRM.. also, not sure the noble/rich houses would be much concerned with it.. once they have a male heir, females would cost only for the wedding dowry.. looks more like a concern for not so wealthy people. To be sure, many nobles aren't wealthy at all.. but killing off females might get their house extinct as well.

Maybe on winters they provide more resources to males?

[averde]

1) It's a fantasy series

2) Even in the real world, there are something like 106 men born for every 100 women

Men die younger.

Men work more dangerous jobs.

Men fight in wars.

Men have to listen to wives nagging them for many years.

Actually there's a couple percent more women then men in the world today.

[Bryanfury]

Blackwood: 6 sons, 1 daughter

Bracken: 5 daughters

Maege: 5 daughters

Oberyn: 8 daughters

Restricting yourself only to the main line of great houses is intentionally avoiding the fact that there are instances of majority girls.

Actually there's a couple percent more women then men in the world today.

Yes, but that doesn't mean the birthrate isn't higher for boys. Just means the death rate is higher for boys too.

[JonCon's Red Beard]

My mother always said that if a lot of boys are born, it means there'll be a war.

I like that phrase. can I use it for something?

[Game Of Thrones]

Blackwood: 6 sons, 1 daughter

Bracken: 5 daughters

Maege: 5 daughters

Oberyn: 8 daughters

Restricting yourself only to the main line of great houses is intentionally avoiding the fact that there are instances of majority girls.

No. It means that I didn't have the time to do this for the other Houses. Not everything's a conspiracy.

And Oberyn's already in, BTW.

[Pod The Impaler]

An odd thought today about this: House Baratheon is such a male house.

Think about it - of all the Baratheons in the stories (by blood, not marriage), how many have been female?

You can count Mya Stone, Bella, and Shireen. Now of significant ones ... ? Were any historically notable Baratheons female ?

Their symbol is a stag. A lion or a wolf or kraken or trout or falcon can be either male of female, but the symbol of a stag is gender specific (only male).

[The Marquis de Leech]

Restricting yourself only to the main line of great houses is intentionally avoiding the fact that there are instances of majority girls.

The funny thing about those majority girl families: they come across like ridiculous overcompensations on Martin's part. Rather than having several families with 5 girls, 3 boys or so, he goes and gives us something like the children of Maege Mormont. It's like he realised that there were too many males floating around the Westerosi nobility, so having a couple of mega female families would solve the problem.

Walder Frey alone is an interesting sample with his 28 legitimate children. I could imagine deviations from 14-14, but 21-7 is a bit much.

[Game Of Thrones]

The funny thing about those majority girl families: they come across like ridiculous overcompensations on Martin's part. Rather than having several families with 5 girls, 3 boys or so, he goes and gives us something like the children of Maege Mormont. It's like he realised that there were too many males floating around the Westerosi nobility, so having a couple of mega female families would solve the problem.

Walder Frey alone is an interesting sample with his 28 legitimate children. I could imagine deviations from 14-14, but 21-7 is a bit much.

This.

[lojzelote]

That ratio means precisely nothing. The author wrote men and boys where he needed men and boys, and wrote women and girls where he needed women and girls in the story. (The appendixes are selective, too: you'll find there a shitload of sers, but scarcely a mention whether those have any mothers, aunts, sisters or daughters.)

This.

An odd thought today about this: House Baratheon is such a male house.

Think about it - of all the Baratheons in the stories (by blood, not marriage), how many have been female?

You can count Mya Stone, Bella, and Shireen. Now of significant ones ... ? Were any historically notable Baratheons female ?

Their symbol is a stag. A lion or a wolf or kraken or trout or falcon can be either male of female, but the symbol of a stag is gender specific (only male).

As for historical Baratheons,

IIRC Lord Borros Baratheon had four daughters, didn't he? Prince Aemond promised to marry one of them at the beginning of the Dance. I've read that according to Mush, he had a son as well.

[Disputatious]

There is also the possibility of widespread female infanticide. It would be interesting to have GRRM's response to that suggestion, as well as some evidence from medieval demographics.

In any case, in the situation as described, finding suitable wives for one's sons will be a difficulty for many houses. Oh well, there is always the citadel and the various religious orders. Or you can send them off to war and get them killed......

[aguy]

in our world, at birth, we have around 53% boys. This is a fantasy series, so maybe in Planetos, the ratio is higher for men. Westeros isnt always at war, and death in childbirth, the fact that many women arent even mentioned, by the houses, or by martin, since we dont really need to know them, its not that far-fetched.

[Equilibrium]

Yeah because in the world where half children doesn't live past two you would want to kill valuable female ones, who can bring you alliances.

Yeah son in laws can be dick in medieval world, but widespread intentional killing of children to prevent 1 in 50 chance of that kind of dispute is a stretch and you can always boot excess daughters to some half-wit sworn shield or make them became septas

[DamoDega]

Agreeable, but it would seem more appropriate if properly hinted by GRRM.. also, not sure the noble/rich houses would be much concerned with it.. once they have a male heir, females would cost only for the wedding dowry.. looks more like a concern for not so wealthy people. To be sure, many nobles aren't wealthy at all.. but killing off females might get their house extinct as well.

Beetween poors dowry was'nt that big deal, specially if your daughter was decent looking and young, at some point somebody will get her

Sure, lower/middle class will do little profit games too, but is not even in proportion... for many was just manage to have one less mouth to feed

But for nobles the bigger target for a daughter was get the best marriage... again, one can be useful, but after that depend from family to family where is the point where is more a cost than a gain

And again, male was more "marketable"

Male can gain value during life (example as a knight) and the cross of families will get your name.

Female if she dont have the luck to born beautiful, just have the value of her born title, and had a limited amount of time before her value start drop due age (fertility and look)

No kill needed, some just declared birth death (very very common) and give her to somebody