why were children with no siblings extremely rare in the olden days?!

Best Answer - Chosen by Voters

mothers did not go out to work, so they needed more children to keep them busy.

Because there were no forms of protection in the olden days. Even if there was, it wasn't that effective, or people couldn't afford it. Also, men wanted to continue there lineage and the women didn't have a say in it. Religion was more "by the book" so to speak, so they thought it was Gods wish for them to have many children. Or they simply wanted more because they had a lot of work to do, since a lot of people had to grow their own food, ect.

A few answers:
1) No birth control of any sort, so what "happened" happened.
2) Many families were from farming communities where having lots of help was required, so kids were essentially workers for the family :)
3) Many children died young because of the poor health care avaiable at the time, so they had plenty to make sure number 2 was covered.

Hope I helped!

"here to help (:" is right- couples would have multiple children because many children would die very young due to disease that the modern days now have treatments for.
So they had many children so that they knew some would live on.

couples in the olden days would try to have as many kids as they could because many children died when they were very young. only children were rare when multiple kids in each family survived.

Probably because there was no birth control. Because their diets were more natural, the women and the men were more fertile and I guarantee you they didn't have sex only once in their entire lives to have had only one child. =)

the pill wasn't available, and condoms were not as widely used, and if the wife didn't put out, the husband could divorce and find someone who would.

well, since bathing regularly was rare too, chances are they just couldn't stand each other's nastiness.

Unreliable contraception. They needed more kids to work the farms.