 For most individuals, for most of history, childlessness has been regarded as a great personal tragedy, involving much emotional pain and grief, especially when it resulted from a failure to conceive or from the death of a child.Before conception was well understood, childlessness was usually blamed on the woman and this in itself added to the high level of negative emotional and social effects of childlessness.“Some wealthy families also adopted children, as a means of providing heirs in cases of childlessness or where no sons had been born.” The monetary incentives offered by Westerners' desire for children is so strong that a commercial market in the child laundering exists.