Sydnordisk Akademi for Donaldisme
: Afdelingen for Donaldistisk Genealogi
Abnormal fecundity rate in Goofy’s family
An
attempt to explain Goofy’s overwhelming number of
relatives
by cAnd.don.theol. Adrien C. Miqueu, SAD 2012
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After a rather long
period of time during which I have been very busy with my Donaldistic
research, I came up with a question, very specific and specialised, but still
interesting for the Academy. I have been really interested in the genealogy
of Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse and Goofy, and built up their family trees. My
focus has been on Mickey’s and Goofy’s relatives,
as the Duck Family’s genealogy had already been brilliantly covered by my
country fellow Dr.Don.Gen.Map. Gilles Maurice.
During my investigations, I noticed an abnormal number of uncles and aunts in
Mickey’s and Goofy’s families; for example, Goofy
has 32 uncles and aunts, without all the “by-marriage” ones! In this article,
I will try to explain the remarkable high number of children for this particular
generation, introducing hormonal disorder and ethic-puritan behaviour as the
two most plausible possible reasons for this phenomenon. I / General cases of
unusual fecundity 1) Introduction to my genealogical studies I have studied Goofy’s family for quite a long time now, and a later
article will maybe be devoted to this topic. Anyway, here are the results of
this huge task. Goofy has indeed an overwhelming number of relatives,
especially of uncles and aunts. Goofy himself does
not seem to know them all, and he often discovers or suddenly remembers their
existence. Here is my Goofy Family
Tree: |
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During my research, I
noticed this unusual number of uncles and aunts in the third generation. When
the time came to build the tree itself, I found myself with 42 uncles and
aunts. I first distinguished two main families: the Goofys
(also based on Dr. Maurice’s work), and the McGoofs.
To make the tree believable and sensible, I tried to balance the number of
uncles and aunts on both sides. Therefore, the tree might not be completely
accurate, as I am not sure about the actual family links between the relatives.
All this notwithstanding, Goofy still has 42 uncles and aunts! 8 of them are
uncles and aunts “by-marriage”, but there are still 34 direct uncles and
aunts. Even if we put approximately half of them on the mother’s side and the
other half on the father’s side, they are 16-18 brothers and sisters for each
parent! I know that people in older days used to get a lot of children, but
almost 20 children – and I am sure there are still relatives that I have not
found yet, and others that chroniclers did not mentioned – is undoubtedly an
evidence of abnormal fecundity in the Goofy/McGoof
family. I have also worked on
Mickey Mouse’s family, and here are the results: |
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Mickey apparently has a
less “extended” family, as he “only” have around 12 uncles and aunts on the
Mouse side (father) and 3 on the O’Mouse side
(mother). However, Minnie has a lot of uncles and aunts on her father’s side,
that is 15 direct relatives and 2 by-marriage. I
also worked on the Duck’s genealogy, but for this article, my statistics will
be based on Dr. Maurice’s work, his Duck Family Tree being, as far as I am
concerned, the absolute reference in this field. 2) Comparison of the fecundity rate between
generations To cover this problem
in a scientific way, I have decided to measure the fecundity rate for every
generation of Goofy’s family, and also to compare
with the fecundity of the Mouse and the Duck family. The protocol was the
following: To study the fecundity of one generation, I counted the number of
children (for whom we know the parents) of the next generation, and then
counted the number of couples, isolated parents, or single persons of the
studied generation, that could have had children. Then, I divided the number
of children by the number of couples, and got the fecundity rate of the
generation. I called “Generation 1”
the “youngest generation” – that is Morty & Ferdie, Huey, Dewey & Louie, Gilbert, etcetera – for each different family.
I started my measures on Generation 2 (Goofy, Mickey, Donald Duck), because
Generation 1 does not have children yet. Below, an example of the “number”
associated with each generation. The generation of main interest here is the
fourth one, because it is on Generation 3 that we reckon an abnormal number
of children.
So, here are the
results of my studies:
We notice, indeed, a
high rate of fecundity in Generation 4 for all three families. The level is
rather low for Generation 2, rises slowly through Generation 3, and then has
a peak in Generation 4 for the Duck and the Mouse families. After that, it
decreases for Ducks and Mice, but keep going up for the Goofy family in
Generation 5, reaching an average rate of three children per couple. The rate
finally decreases for all families in Generation 6. We definitely have an
abnormal fecundity rate in Generation 4 for all families,
and in Generation 5 as well for Goofy. Below is the average rate of fecundity
worked out for all five generations:
Goofy’s family has an average of approximately 1.55
children by couple. In Generation 4, the rate increase to c. 2.25 and continues to c. 3.0 in Generation 5. Or in other
words: About the double of the average
fecundity rate! Same thing for the other families. The Mouses’ average being around 1.6, but 2.75 in Generation
4; the Ducks’ fecundity average is around 1.25, but increases to 2.0 in
Generation 4. All these observations suggest some sort of systematic disorder
for Generation 4 – and even more so for Generation 5 in Goofy’s
family. But what could be the explanation for this phenomenon? 3)
Other examples of unusual fecundity in Stella anatium We have seen that
Ducks, Mice and Dogs seem to have some fecundity problems. They could have
only a 0.5- or an even lower fecundity rate, which is far too low to maintain
a population. And at the same time, two generations before, having a 2+
fecundity rate, which is higher than a developed country like Calisota. But we also have other examples of abnormal
fecundity in the shape of unusual births and peculiar fertility. What I am
now going to talk about is the worrying number of twins and triplets in Duckburg. Just to give some names, we have for the most
famous twins Morty and Ferdie
(Mickey’s nephews), Millie and Melody (Minnie’s nieces), and Tiny and Lily
(Minnie’s nieces in I M 41-1).
Millie
and Melody (from W 01518 A-06 ). And even better known,
the triplets Huey, Dewey and Louie (Donald’s nephews) and April, May and June
(Daisy’s nieces), as well as the less known George, Patrick and Simeon (Rockerduck’s nephews from D 6106).
George,
Patrick, Simeon, Huey, Dewey and Louie (from D 6106). Even if this is not an
exhaustive list, we can conclude that the number of twins and triplets is
rather high. Moreover, I would like to draw your attention to one particular
point: all these triplets and twins belong to the first generation,
or Generation 1 as I called it.
They are almost all located on this generation, whereas in the other
generations triplets and twins become almost non-existent. The phenomena of twins
and triplets can be due to different causes, which will be explained in more
details later, but the two main factors are these: the ovaries produce two
ova, so both are fertilised and that gives us two babies, but not identical.
The other possibility is that the fertilised ovum, the zygote, split in two
identical parts, both of which will give a baby, and here they are identical
twins. However, these phenomena are only known for mammals, not for birds. II / The hormonal
explanation I will spare you all
the technical details about genetics, but here is the main idea of my thesis:
The fact that these people have an overwhelming number of children can be
explained by a hormonal disorder! Hormonal problems can cause the production
of several ova at the same time. The effect is usually the production of
twins or triplets. However, the 18 children on Goofy’s
father’s side are not all twins and triplets. They are just normal brothers
and sisters, even if they all look more or less alike, and even if some of
them apparently have significant age gaps, they still seem to be all around
the same age. This leaves us with two possibilities: 1) They are
non-identical twins or triplets (even quadruplets or more), and due to a
hormonal disease, their mother had around 6 (!) times triplets; 2) They are
all normal brothers and sisters. But for both hypotheses, there is one
question: How on Earth is this possible? The answer can be found
in the very “heart” of the procreation system. During the menstrual cycle,
several hormones activate or inhibit other glands, which can itself produce
other hormones. In the female cycle, GnRH-hormone
is released by the hypothalamus to activate the pituitary gland, which will
itself produce LH- and FSH-hormones.
These last two ones will then activate the production of oestrogen and
progesterone. In the end, oestrogen reduces the production of GnRH, expected on the 13th day of the cycle.
On that day, an ovum is released and can be inseminated. A small disorder in
this process, for example on the FSH-production,
can lead to an abnormal number of released ova. This can be the explanation
of the surprising number of twins and triplets.
But for all the brothers
and sisters, this would imply that the female would have been constantly
impregnated, as the ovum production goes on. Moreover, there must have been
another hormonal disturbance. Indeed, once the ovum is inseminated, the
embryo produces HCG, a hormone which will activate
the production of oestrogen and progesterone, which eventually will reduce
the GnRH-production, and stop the cycle. This is
the normal process, to avoid the risk of having two embryo
at different states of development at the same time. This following big
question is: Where does this disorder come from? It can be noted that for all
the studied families, generation 4 had the highest fecundity rate. There must
have been some kind of global effect during this period. Based on my
research, I assume that these individuals mainly have lived in the time
period 1840-1910. I cannot draw a conclusion for the moment, as I have not
identified any global, major disaster that could have caused this great
disturbance. The high number of children may have been due to a physiological
characteristic of Ducks, Mice and Dogs in Stella anatium.
As well as for cats, which can have lot of babies at the same time, Ducks too
could have this peculiarity. The high fecundity rate may also be explained by
a physiological characteristic, or by a hormonal disorder. But for this last
explanation, we have to consider if and how (not to say why) the female was
constantly impregnated while still being pregnant.
III / The ethico-religious explanation 1)
Christianity As stated in my earlier
article, I assume that the Ducks are Christians. Actually, I reckon that they
do not practise it regularly, but their ancestors did and they are still
living in a ‘Christianity-influenced’ world. The point I want to make is that
even if they do not themselves believe in God, they are still influenced by
Christian mentality around them. At least some fractions within the Christian
Church are rather strict about having several children, as every child is a gift from God, and, thus, they preach that sexual
relationships only should take place with the purpose of making children. 2)
Social pressure Pressure from the
surrounding family might too be the cause of this behaviour. I have mainly
talked about Ducks, but the same behaviour is visible in Mickey’s and Goofy’s families. 3) Survival
instinct My last hypothesis can
seem rather strange and off-topic, but nevertheless it cannot be disregarded.
Like all living creatures, Ducks, Mice and Dogs have, somewhere deep inside
their mind, a survival instinct. We may assume that their primitive brain
sometimes takes over and acts on the reproductive impulse from such an
instinct. In a Freudian analysis, the “Id” takes over the “Ego”, and the
“Super-ego” cannot repress this behaviour. I will not go any further into
this process, as I am not very knowledgeable in this field. Conclusion The high number of
relatives in Duckburg families, especially in the
Goofy family, remains a mystery. As possible explanations, we can suggest
hormonal disorder, physiological characteristics, and socio-religious
behaviour. For my personal view, I would like to consider a combination of
both hormonal disorder and Christian influence. There could have been some
kind of physiological problems to allow this number of children, even very
close by age, combined with the repetition of unprotected intercourse. This
would have lead to a “constant pregnancy”-state for the mother, and therefore
a continuous delivery.
Bibliography Dr.don.ext.hon.
Jon GISLE (1973): Donaldismen, Oslo. Dr.don.gen.map.
Gilles MAURICE: Duck Family Tree, Calisota Online; http://goofy313g.free.fr/calisota_online/trees/ducktrees/index.html. |
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