Wiesner-Hanks - Childhood and Adolescence

Based on all of the readings we have done so far in class I wasn't at all surprised by the harshness that was talked of in regards to young girls and, in some cases, infants in Europe. Seeing some things such as Jewish mothers praying that they would have sons; German midwives being more heavily rewarded for assisting in the births of sons. (pg 57) And then some families just abandoning their infant girls causing the orphanages to be overflowing with girls. But the thing that struck me was when it mentioned that in London there were higher number of boys that were abandoned than girls. Every Country can do different things, but this caught my eye as they seemed to be the odd one out in Europe considering the higher regard for boys in the rest of Europe. I was hoping for more information on this matter, but so far haven't seen any. Could it be that for some reason women were actually on more equal ground in London than in the rest of Europe or were there other circumstances for this? Most of the European nations simply thought that their boys were the only ones that had a chance for success; so I am inclined to believe that maybe the people of London believed more in the equal chances of boys and girls to have success as adults.