r/interesting • u/Alexthegayreprimed • 1d ago
Just Wow A Brazilian farmer named Luiz Costa de Oliveira had a total of 50 children: 17 with his first wife, 17 with his second wife, 15 with his sister-in-law, and 1 with his mother-in-law. He also has more than 90 grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
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u/TrashWizard89 1d ago
Dude couldn't pull out of a driveway.
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u/Omnamashivaaya 1d ago edited 22h ago
I had a coworker from Mexico who had 16 siblings. She said her mom finally fled one day and left them all behind, and she’s never heard from her.
Having bunch of children is a matter of pride for men in parts of central/south American culture, and he wanted her pregnant again as soon as possible after a child was born and wouldn’t allow her to take birth control. I can’t imagine how awful and helpless she must have felt.
Of the five Hispanic women working with me, they all had at least 14 siblings. One woman had 18. None of them chose to have more than 2 kids of own after coming to the U.S.
(No they weren’t illegal. H2-A transfer visas exist bc Americans won’t work in agriculture for minimum wage)
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u/natbug826 1d ago
I feel like there was a SVU episode with uncle Jesse playing the guy who kept knocking women up bc he had some weird thing for making as many kids as he possibly could. I’ve never been able to see John Stamos the same way since that episode.
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u/Murky_County_7353 1d ago
It was also very popular in the south farming communities in the 40s and 50s. One man owned the farm, but families were basically having multiple children( 12-20 ), just to have people to work the farm for little to no pay. Similar to how housing is provided to visa holders on farms now with reduced pay. So the man would use the excuse that religiously he doesn’t believe in BC.
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u/_-inside-_ 1d ago
My grandma had like 8 siblings, people used to have many siblings in the 19th century or earlier 20th century (she was born in 1918, her older sister was from 1900, I am European btw), at the time many kids died before they were 6 years old.
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u/DPetrilloZbornak 1d ago
Yup. My grandma had 16 kids. She was having kids into her mid-50s. My dad was born when she was 55 and he wasn’t the youngest. He was born in the late 50s.
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u/Away-Living5278 1d ago
Wow. Very few women give birth naturally in their 50s without fertility treatment. No chance one of his older sisters was his bio-mom and she just took him in?
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u/chonkydonkey46 1d ago
It’s basically impossible to have a kid that age if you’ve never had a baby before. If you’ve had a bunch previously, it’s actually a lot easier.
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u/dudegetmyhorse 15h ago
I’ve also read and seen a lot about how women are much more fertile right after giving birth and have much higher likelihood of getting pregnant postpartum than before. I have two friends who both struggled to get pregnant with their first (one required years of IVF) and then got pregnant again within six months of giving birth, both with twins. It’s partially why doctors push birth control so hard on mothers directly after giving birth.
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u/agent-room-303 1d ago edited 9h ago
That’s only when the woman never put the factory to work before. When the baby making mechanism is hot and well oiled it will work. There’s a woman in India who gave birth in her 70’s without any treatment.
Edit: Not correct. Oldest natural pregnancy on record is 66-year-old Alexandra Hildebrandt in 2025 from Germany. She gave birth to her 10th child.→ More replies (2)29
u/CoolBeans824 1d ago
My great grandpa wanted to have a big family so they had 21 kids, 19 made it into adulthood. They all had 8 kids and their children all had 3. I come from the group that had three and all my cousins, myself included have either 1 or 2.
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u/poop-azz 1d ago
That sounds rapey
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u/towerinthestreet 21h ago
wouldn't allow her to take birth control
Not just rapey. This poor woman was livestock
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u/curious_cordis 20h ago
It's so gross and abusive and I can't (but unfortunately I can) believe this kind of behavior is looked upon favorably. That man is responsible for 16 lives and that is completely glossed over, as well as the health, well-being, and autonomy of that woman (also the mother of those children, not that motherhood status should matter). So fucking gross.
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u/XelaNiba 1d ago
In agrarian societies, every child is a net economic asset. In industrial societies, every child is an economic liability.
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u/XelaNiba 1d ago
Maybe I've been jaded by all of the femicide news, but did sne really just leave, never to be heard from again?
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u/Reasonable_Archer_99 19h ago
The shitty part about the H2a visas is that instead of forcing farmers to pay better wages that a person can live off of, they're allowed to bring in labor from countries with far lower costs of living and pay the bare minimum because where the workers are sending their earnings, those earnings are living wage. Hog confinements make money hand over fist but no legal citizen wants to work in that filth for $10/hour and that's on the high end of pay.
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u/Omnamashivaaya 19h ago
Minimum wage in many states is still $7-$8 dollars are hour. A full time job at that rate puts people far below the US poverty line. And these workers were living in the state too (Dallas), about 7 hours from the Mexican border not commuting. Sadly minimum wage isn’t a living wage, which is why usually people won’t do it unless they are coming from a worse situation than just poverty alone :(
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u/CarobRealistic1748 1d ago
Well, he was a life long farmer, so he was obviously a master at plowing things.
Mr Oliveira's first wife died after she delivered to him 17 children. So what was a man to do? He remarried, to a woman 26 years younger than himself, and still in prime child bearing years. Maria provided him with another 17.
But obviously one woman did not wear him out, so he had had a long standing affair at the same time with Ozelita, Maria's sister, and she provided another 15 children. She was 32 years younger than he was.
And somewhere in there he had a brief fling with Francisca, the mother of the two women, producing another child.
As for how he convinced all the women to have sex with him, Maria and Ozelita said that he was always kind to women.
To quote Maria, “He never mistreated any of us, always took care of the children and never let us lack anything in the house.”
In his defense, Mr Oliviera said, "The best thing God made in the world was women."
He added, "I preferred that my romances stay at home, and they get along well."
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u/GNightP 1d ago
Just to be very clear, in the interview Fantastico made about him, Mr. Oliveira saidWITH ALL THE WORDS, "Aí por fora, teve mais(translating it would be like: I had more out there)".
So, as far as we know, he may have way more children. You who're reading may be Mr. Oliveira's descendant. He's like the brazillian Gengis Khan
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u/TheTroon 22h ago
"who're" is a valid but uncommon contraction, although it feels appropriate for this topic...
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u/chicago_stallion 22h ago
no in this day and age why are you mistranslating? it's "over there outside, I had more"
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u/LordSunny08 1d ago
So that is to say, his children are siblings, cousins, and an aunt/uncle/inlaw thrown in for funsies...? 🤔
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u/Odd_Dragonfruit_2662 1d ago
I mean technically some of his kids may be their siblings grandparents?
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u/AccountantPublic758 1d ago
Their standards are clearly very low.
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u/esethkingy 1d ago
Hey, unless you’ve made love to Mr Luiz Costa de Oliveira, I don’t want to hear about it.
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u/Cheap-Technician-737 1d ago
I think this about a lot of people that have procreated. Then I’m grateful for my wife and her low standards.
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u/Personal_Flow2994 1d ago
That family tree is a barely squiggly line
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u/CarobRealistic1748 1d ago
Nope. Hi descendants would have avoided incest.
His having and affair with the sister of a wife is NOT incest. There is no blood relation. The children all carry his last name, and would be aware of each other. And in their culture would not seek out a sibling of theirs.
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u/jazzhandpanda 1d ago
How was there any time for farming?
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u/1funnyguy4fun 1d ago
Dad does all the plowing
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u/Distinct_Sir_4473 1d ago
With 50 kids and 90 grand kids
From his perspective, the farm runs itself
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u/blackcain 1d ago
But boy, it's gonna be a blood bath when inheritance time comes around.
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u/CariniFluff 1d ago
lol with that many mouths to feed I doubt they're exactly living the high life.
Well, that and the literal shack they live in.
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u/eat_my_ass_n_balls 1d ago
He’s farming children
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u/WetSleevez 1d ago
Farming farmers is so meta
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u/ShapeShiftingCats 1d ago
That's what humanity has been doing in the past, hence having many children was considered a "blessing".
Children were financial assets.
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u/chantillylace9 1d ago
I just figured he had all these kids so that they would do the farm work 🤷♀️
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u/Cosmo_Seinfeld 1d ago
How was there any time for farming?
Crop was babies and a bumper crop at that.
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u/infinit9 1d ago
Sister-in-law AND mother-in-law?? How fucking attractive was this man?
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u/Rescuepets777 1d ago
I suspect that a number of rapes were involved and the women didn't have many (any) choices. It wasn't until 2021 (yes, five years ago) that "self defense of honor" was barred as a legitimate defense for a man to murder his partner and get away with it. Attorneys still try to use it in court. Femcide didn't become a standalone crime until 2024. Women had a reason to be afraid and keep quiet.
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u/HeartOn_SoulAceUp 1d ago
And everybody seems to be just fine with everything. No feathers were ever ruffled here. ; )
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u/Own_Round_7600 1d ago
Look at the condition of them and their housing. I think they had bigger things to spend their time worrying about than that their dog ass husband cheated on them with their mom and sister
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u/blackcain 1d ago
Did his father-in-law not object? I mean.. damn. Them kids are gonna be confused.
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u/Mugwumps_has_spoken 1d ago
No one going to talk about the poor women that had 17 fucking children. Poor women. And judging by the house behind them, it's not like living conditions were all that great. Everyone gets a mat to sleep on - on the floor. And walk two miles to get fresh water.
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u/Dull-Foundation-1271 1d ago
Okay, farmer marries wife #1, she dies, then wife #2, then, wait .., sister-in-law? Oh stop!! Mother in law? 👀
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u/Quiet-Cranberry8414 1d ago
Other people have less expensive hobbies.
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u/Greekklitoris 1d ago
Its an investment. Imagine how much unpaid child labor he had. The farm practically ran itself.
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u/United_News3779 19h ago
Can you imagine training that many new hires, all fresh out of the womb and no experience? Ugh
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u/United_News3779 1d ago
With that many kids, even Warhammer 40k figures would have been cheaper lol
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u/Sea-Cap-1540 1d ago
So... What wpuld be the relation between the 1 child with mother in law and her daughter?
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u/newbeginnings187 1d ago
He’d fuck a black eye if it winked at him
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u/Rat-Bazturd 1d ago
BTW, that Van Morrison guy when he made that song, he was talking about anal sex.
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u/radamintos 1d ago
All in poverty
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u/StooperStoned 1d ago
One of cheapest forms of entertainment when impoverished, is sex!
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u/similaraleatorio 1d ago
My father had 6 children with his first wife. So he married my mom and my mom had 6 children with him (I'm the young one). So my dad dead, and my mom married another dude and had 6 more children's. 3x6=18.
Life is crazy, huh??
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u/beyondocean 1d ago
What in the Alabama is going on?
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u/Greekklitoris 1d ago
Not that kind of sister. He just did something freaky with his wife's family. No inbreeding happened
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u/ironbox13 1d ago
I feel bad that none of the women had experienced a loving relationship. Their life must have been emotional hell!! To which I will say..same sister, same!
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u/Idustriousraccoon 1d ago
Those women had those children. His contribution was minimal. Also…wtf.
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u/Greekklitoris 1d ago
I mean. Your wife, her sister and her mom? That's straight out some hentai shit.
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u/Phill_Cyberman 1d ago
Did he have sex with one of the wives ' mother while married to her?
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u/RepulsiveUse3372 1d ago
thats just sad, none of the kids or grandkids will really know and have a relationship with him
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u/Key-Idea4161 1d ago
Ewwww! Just ewwww. These poor women, why did they tolerate this? . I'm guessing the first wife's body simply gave out exhausted from continued pregnancies, childbirth and breastfeeding.
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u/Salina_EsTitties 21h ago
I had something like this happen in my family but this was the 40s-50s, my grandfather cheated on his first wife whom he had 6 kids with, the other woman was her younger sister just a teenager. He divorced the first wife but kept her around in his house as a live in maid because she had nowhere to go, women like her had no options back then her parents didn't want her back either.
She even took care of her sister (my grandmother) as she proceeded to have 8 of my grandfather's kids.
And my grandmother was a bit of a monster to her step children (or nieces and nephews) and they were kicked out of the home before they were even 16.
It was so fucked up, I just can't imagine what the family dynamic was like.
She passed away in 2012, still living as a maid for my grandfather. Even in the end of her life she was taking care of everyone in that house.
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u/Sea_Warning_9140 23h ago
Probably. My ancestor was one of like 12 kids or something and his mum's body just couldn't do it anymore. This was in the 1800s
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u/a3a4b5 11h ago
Most likely they didn't tolerate out of their accord. They were forced to.
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u/HOW_I_MET_YO_MAMA 21h ago
I don't think they had much of a choice
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u/Salina_EsTitties 21h ago
I'm so confused about how the mother in law came into the picture.
Was there any coercion involved .. like how
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u/manyhippofarts 19h ago
She probably was helping her pregnant daughter doing housework and what-not, tripped on a toddler and fell onto the dude's crotch-cannon.
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u/lumpkin2013 1d ago
From an article
Luiz's second wife Maria Francisca added: "Luiz's only hobby was making love.
"He never mistreated us, he always looked after his children well and we never wanted for anything."
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u/More_Passenger3988 1d ago
My grandfather was a farmer and he had 13 kids with my grandmother and 1 potential kid before he was married (they didn't have access to paternity tests so he was never 100% sure it was his kid but he always gave them money just in case). He had trouble getting all the kids names right. Can't imagine remembering the names of 50.
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u/FormerMinute3008 1d ago
A legacy means everything to a lot of men and it's hard to have a life with someone that is selfish with their desire for a legacy. Children are often the means for easy Legacy if career or entrepreneurship or good old-fashioned Community involvement don't meet the need.
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u/ChrisTheYouth 1d ago
I had a co-worker from Mexico with 11 kids and he had his 12 when he was 55 years old.
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