The industrial revolution gave us railways, smokestacks and the workhouse. Now a study suggests that it also delivered a tremendous increase in extramarital affairs.
Research has calculated how many sons were raised by men who were not their biological fathers over the past 500 years in the Netherlands and Belgium.
Over the centuries, the rate mostly remained stable at about one boy in 100 — thought to be the occurrence today. There was, however, a sharp increase during the 19th century when it shot up to about six boys in 100 among the poor working classes of rapidly growing cities such as Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Antwerp.
According to Maarten Larmuseau of KU Leuven, a university in Belgium, the increase is likely to reflect not only