Acceleration of menarcheal age of girls from dysfunctional families

Abstract

I first review studies that deal with the tempo of maturation of girls from dysfunctional families in Poland. The authors of the studies used various methods both to gather the data and to compare the tempo of maturation of girls. The methods are presented and discussed here mainly from the point of view of their applicability to the theory of Belsky, Steinberg and Draper [(1991) Childhood experience, interpersonal development and reproductive strategy: an evolutionary theory and socialization, Child Development 62, 647–670]. All the results surveyed here lead to the conclusion that girls from dysfunctional families mature not later but even earlier than girls from normal families, though the standard of living of the former is much lower, on average. This fact is confronted with the very well established finding that in Poland there is a strong correlation between the low standard of living of a family and delayed maturation of the children. This supports the hypothesis that stressful childhood life events accelerate maturation of girls. This acceleration has been observed and discussed by many authors; see Kim, Smith & Palermiti [(1997) Conflict in childhood and reproductive development, Evolution and Human Behaviour, 18, 109–142] for a comprehensive bibliography.