I'm confused about the meaning of this sentence:
The typical family is three or four children; the latter among the 8 to 12 children that will be born into the family during the lives of the parents.
So I get confused where it says "the latter"
Does this mean that in total there will be 8 to 12 childern that the parents have?
It reads as if the parents have between 8 and 12 children, but only 3 or 4 live to adulthood.
What is the context of this?
The family of Purtains
That would be about right. Infant mortality in those days was pretty high.
http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy&hl=en&q=infant+mortality+rate+%22colonial+america%22&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=&pbx=1&fp=277269eb79cf8370
I think the numbers are exaggerated, but you have it right. The real numbers is about 1/3 of the children died.
http://books.google.com/books?id=jpA5UO14yqgC&pg=PT66&lpg=PT66&dq=infant+mortality+puritans&source=bl&ots=QQ5v7-cPna&sig=dd_IxaerOw4LtqaeEERThWCBr88&hl=en&ei=EF2RTPOkGsb_lgfnupXkAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CDIQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q&f=false
In the sentence you provided, "the latter" is referring to the second group of children mentioned in the sentence. Here's a breakdown of the sentence to help clarify its meaning:
"The typical family is three or four children; the latter among the 8 to 12 children that will be born into the family during the lives of the parents."
The sentence is saying that the typical family consists of three or four children. Then, the word "latter" is used to refer to the second group of children, which is specified as "among the 8 to 12 children." This means that in addition to the initial three or four children, there will be an additional 8 to 12 children born into the family during the lives of the parents, making the total number of children between 11 and 16.
So, to answer your question, the sentence is stating that in total there will be 8 to 12 additional children born into the family, which, when combined with the initial three or four children, would result in a total of 11 to 16 children.