Following the Greater Wrath and the Treaty of Nystad in 1722, Sweden's role as a major European power was over, and the decades that followed brought even more disasters. Black death and the sufferings caused by the Great Northern Wars made Stockholm the capital of a shrinking nation, despair which would deepen even further when Sweden lost Finland in 1809. Notwithstanding Sweden's partial recover of spirit with the union with Norway in 1814, during the period 1750–1850, Stockholm was a stagnating city, with a dwindling population and widespread unemployment, marked by ill-health, poverty, alcoholism, and rampant mortality. The Mälaren region lost in influence to the benefit of south-western Sweden, and as population and welfare dwindled in the capital, there was a leveling of social classes. Wars and alcohol abuse resulted in a surplus of women during the period, with widows outnumbering widowers six to one in 1850. Stockholm was marked by an absence of children, caused by the number of unmarried people and high infant mortality. Average length of life was limited to 44, but those who survived infancy were likely to get about as old as people do today, except those born to a life of hard labour.