Life expectancy was next to none and much instruction wasn't required for ladies so they would remain reliant on their spouses. Life expecancy is a factual measure of the normal time a life form is relied upon to live, in light of the time of their introduction to the world, their present age and other statistic factors including sex.
Because I'm not sure what text you're referring to, I can only talk on what I know about Galileo. Because he created the telescope and was able to provide more legitimate evidence to support Copernicus' Heliocentric Theory, he began proving that some of the Church's teachings were not correct. This was deemed heresy (to go against the belief and teachings of those around you in a way that seems like betrayal rather than freedom of thought)
He was originally looking for the East Indies. (Islands that were part of India.)
A union of independent sovereign states is called confederacy.
A confederacy is an association of sovereign states or communities. Confederacy may include tribes, states or communities.
In a confederacy states or people join together for a particular purpose, usually related to politics or trade.
In the American Civil War, Confederacy was the group of southern states that fought to leave the United States and keep slavery.
