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>>Now, have you heard of XX and XY chromosones? We (men) are inherently weak in our genetic make-up. Women live longer.
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>Terry;
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>About women living longer (in the United States): A study indicated that men lived longer than women until about 1900 in this country. The opposite is true today. This has been attributed to the hard work women had to perform without the use of any of today’s appliances. A woman’s life in the United States was very hard.
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There is a brief discourse in Robert Caro's biography of LBJ about what life was like for women in Texas Hill Country around the turn of the 20th century. He breaks it down into daily tasks, for instance the number of times they had to walk to the well, the average number of steps, the weight of water and pails, and so on. Backbreaking work, almost literally. No wonder Texas women are not people to mess with idly!

If you like biographies, BTW, that is one of the best I have read. There are three volumes out, with the fourth and final volume, focusing on his Presidency, still to come. Caro has the writer's gift of making history come alive. None of those deadly dull early chapters you find in so many bios. Another little detail I loved was the nickname LBJ had at the junior college he attended: Bull Johnson. You can probably guess what "Bull" abbreviated. Even then he had a reputation for not being strictly truthful.