Pub Date : 2022-07-03DOI: 10.1080/1081602X.2022.2101502
Lyndan Warner, G. Erdélyi
ABSTRACT This special issue investigates the families arising from death and the remarriage of a parent to consider the outcomes for the children, parents and stepparents from 1550 to 1900. It investigates historical demography to establish the numbers and types of stepfamilies. The introduction sketches several themes such as: the lingering effects of parental loss; how remarriage shapes stepfamily patterns in Western and East Central Europe; the effects of being a stepchild; stepparent caregiving and the household economy; when illegitimate children become stepchildren; household structure, property and inheritance regimes; and avenues for future research. This stepfamilies issue explores the cleavages as well as similarities in stepfamilies from Western Europe to Eastern Europe and looks beyond the continent into the overseas territories of the Dutch and Portuguese empires.
{"title":"Stepfamilies across Europe and overseas, 1550–1900","authors":"Lyndan Warner, G. Erdélyi","doi":"10.1080/1081602X.2022.2101502","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1081602X.2022.2101502","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This special issue investigates the families arising from death and the remarriage of a parent to consider the outcomes for the children, parents and stepparents from 1550 to 1900. It investigates historical demography to establish the numbers and types of stepfamilies. The introduction sketches several themes such as: the lingering effects of parental loss; how remarriage shapes stepfamily patterns in Western and East Central Europe; the effects of being a stepchild; stepparent caregiving and the household economy; when illegitimate children become stepchildren; household structure, property and inheritance regimes; and avenues for future research. This stepfamilies issue explores the cleavages as well as similarities in stepfamilies from Western Europe to Eastern Europe and looks beyond the continent into the overseas territories of the Dutch and Portuguese empires.","PeriodicalId":46118,"journal":{"name":"History of the Family","volume":"27 1","pages":"411 - 433"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46274591","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-07-03DOI: 10.1080/1081602X.2022.2103167
P. T. de Matos, Diogo Paiva
ABSTRACT This article uses parish registers, libri status animarum, and notarial records from the 18th and 19th centuries to assess the extent to which the rates of remarriage of widows and widowers in the Azores were similar to those of mainland Portugal. We consider that, despite the clear obstacles to marriage on the islands (due especially to male emigration) remarriage was in fact frequent and created stepfamilies. Factors such as social tolerance, sexuality outside of marriage and the lack of stigmatization of remarriage may provide part of the explanation. The article shows that a high proportion of widows gave birth to children during their widowhood and out of wedlock. Further, widows frequently attracted men of a much younger age as spouses, which again was socially tolerated. After remarriage by a widowed parent, the general pattern was to raise stepchildren in the family home. Remarriage rarely led to the departure of a stepchild under 16 from the household. The article considers the life trajectories of children who suffered parental loss and the half-orphans whose parents subsequently remarried. Moreover, a significant number of stepfamilies were formed by single mothers, who later married a man who was not the biological father of their child(ren). Beyond the qualitative analysis of parental loss and remarriage, the article outlines the motives of the widowed parents who sought to remarry quickly and follows some stepfamily experiences to detail the moments of transition and living arrangements of stepfamilies. The parish records combined with documents from notaries allow a qualitative understanding of some of the remarried spousal partnerships as well as the stepparent-stepchild relationships developed over decades.
{"title":"Remarriage and Stepfamilies in the ‘Western Islands’ of Europe: the rural Azores of Portugal in the 18th and 19th centuries","authors":"P. T. de Matos, Diogo Paiva","doi":"10.1080/1081602X.2022.2103167","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1081602X.2022.2103167","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article uses parish registers, libri status animarum, and notarial records from the 18th and 19th centuries to assess the extent to which the rates of remarriage of widows and widowers in the Azores were similar to those of mainland Portugal. We consider that, despite the clear obstacles to marriage on the islands (due especially to male emigration) remarriage was in fact frequent and created stepfamilies. Factors such as social tolerance, sexuality outside of marriage and the lack of stigmatization of remarriage may provide part of the explanation. The article shows that a high proportion of widows gave birth to children during their widowhood and out of wedlock. Further, widows frequently attracted men of a much younger age as spouses, which again was socially tolerated. After remarriage by a widowed parent, the general pattern was to raise stepchildren in the family home. Remarriage rarely led to the departure of a stepchild under 16 from the household. The article considers the life trajectories of children who suffered parental loss and the half-orphans whose parents subsequently remarried. Moreover, a significant number of stepfamilies were formed by single mothers, who later married a man who was not the biological father of their child(ren). Beyond the qualitative analysis of parental loss and remarriage, the article outlines the motives of the widowed parents who sought to remarry quickly and follows some stepfamily experiences to detail the moments of transition and living arrangements of stepfamilies. The parish records combined with documents from notaries allow a qualitative understanding of some of the remarried spousal partnerships as well as the stepparent-stepchild relationships developed over decades.","PeriodicalId":46118,"journal":{"name":"History of the Family","volume":"27 1","pages":"493 - 520"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49498231","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-07-03DOI: 10.1080/1081602X.2022.2103166
Ana Mafalda Lopes
ABSTRACT Stepfamily relationships in eighteenth – and nineteenth-century Portugal are often invisible because of the mobility of the population. Widows and widowers did not hesitate to remarry and create blended households of first and second marriage beds even though this option was criticized by Catholic clergy and targeted by legislation penalizing widows. Portuguese legislation was harsh on stepfathers as they were considered the ‘enemies of orphans’ whereas stepmothers were allowed by the authorities to have the guardianship of stepchildren after the death of the biological father. However, in practice, stepchildren and half-siblings were separated from the rest of the stepfamily by exit through marriage, entry into convents, or emigration at some point in the life cycle of the household and, thus, these step-relationships became invisible except through property transactions and inheritance at moments of death. This article considers the roles of stepparents, stepchildren and half-siblings within these newly formed families and if illegitimate children were also accepted into a family alongside legitimate half–siblings. The evidence for stepfamily patterns in Portugal has been collected from case studies within a large body of archival research to reconstruct trajectories of the stepfamilies as they can be traced in petitions, judicial and notarial records, inheritance procedures, marriage contracts, last wills and parish records. Through these sources we can build an idea of the kinds of relationships that stepparents, stepchildren and half-siblings created within these blended families in Portugal in the 1700s and 1800s.
{"title":"The invisibility of Portuguese stepfamilies: the relationships between stepparents, stepchildren and half-siblings in eighteenth– and nineteenth–century Porto","authors":"Ana Mafalda Lopes","doi":"10.1080/1081602X.2022.2103166","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1081602X.2022.2103166","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Stepfamily relationships in eighteenth – and nineteenth-century Portugal are often invisible because of the mobility of the population. Widows and widowers did not hesitate to remarry and create blended households of first and second marriage beds even though this option was criticized by Catholic clergy and targeted by legislation penalizing widows. Portuguese legislation was harsh on stepfathers as they were considered the ‘enemies of orphans’ whereas stepmothers were allowed by the authorities to have the guardianship of stepchildren after the death of the biological father. However, in practice, stepchildren and half-siblings were separated from the rest of the stepfamily by exit through marriage, entry into convents, or emigration at some point in the life cycle of the household and, thus, these step-relationships became invisible except through property transactions and inheritance at moments of death. This article considers the roles of stepparents, stepchildren and half-siblings within these newly formed families and if illegitimate children were also accepted into a family alongside legitimate half–siblings. The evidence for stepfamily patterns in Portugal has been collected from case studies within a large body of archival research to reconstruct trajectories of the stepfamilies as they can be traced in petitions, judicial and notarial records, inheritance procedures, marriage contracts, last wills and parish records. Through these sources we can build an idea of the kinds of relationships that stepparents, stepchildren and half-siblings created within these blended families in Portugal in the 1700s and 1800s.","PeriodicalId":46118,"journal":{"name":"History of the Family","volume":"27 1","pages":"521 - 545"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46821245","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-06-15DOI: 10.1080/1081602X.2022.2084442
Mayra Murkens, B. Pelzer, A. Janssens
ABSTRACT The decline in infant mortality played a crucial role in the health transition in the Western World. This decline among the vulnerable new-borns was however not an evenly dispersed process. Inequalities as a result of regional differences, cultural influences or socioeconomic status shaped the paths towards low mortality rates. The role of socioeconomic status in levels of infant mortality and its decline remain highly debated. In this article, we study the development of socioeconomic disparities in infant mortality in the Dutch town of Maastricht in the period 1864–1955. This study uses unique individual-level cause of death data in order to see when changes in disease patterns took place for different socioeconomic groups. The aim is to identify socioeconomic inequalities by mapping changing epidemiological patterns over time, according to age within the first year of life. By deploying a multinomial logistic regression analysis we can trace the different timing of changes in the epidemiological regime. The results reveal that for most infants the change in mortality patterns from water- and foodborne infectious diseases towards a predominance of airborne infectious diseases occurred simultaneously with the massive decline in infant mortality from the start of the First World War onwards. Infants from the upper classes, however, appeared to have gained an earlier advantage, followed by infants from unskilled workers. Finally, from qualitative data it becomes clear that the awareness of the problematic nature of infant mortality, knowledge on infant care, hygienic practices, breastfeeding practices and the economic situation of World War I were factors aiding to the uneven decline in infant mortality.
{"title":"Transitory inequalities: how individual-level cause-specific death data can unravel socioeconomic inequalities in infant mortality in Maastricht, the Netherlands, 1864–1955","authors":"Mayra Murkens, B. Pelzer, A. Janssens","doi":"10.1080/1081602X.2022.2084442","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1081602X.2022.2084442","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The decline in infant mortality played a crucial role in the health transition in the Western World. This decline among the vulnerable new-borns was however not an evenly dispersed process. Inequalities as a result of regional differences, cultural influences or socioeconomic status shaped the paths towards low mortality rates. The role of socioeconomic status in levels of infant mortality and its decline remain highly debated. In this article, we study the development of socioeconomic disparities in infant mortality in the Dutch town of Maastricht in the period 1864–1955. This study uses unique individual-level cause of death data in order to see when changes in disease patterns took place for different socioeconomic groups. The aim is to identify socioeconomic inequalities by mapping changing epidemiological patterns over time, according to age within the first year of life. By deploying a multinomial logistic regression analysis we can trace the different timing of changes in the epidemiological regime. The results reveal that for most infants the change in mortality patterns from water- and foodborne infectious diseases towards a predominance of airborne infectious diseases occurred simultaneously with the massive decline in infant mortality from the start of the First World War onwards. Infants from the upper classes, however, appeared to have gained an earlier advantage, followed by infants from unskilled workers. Finally, from qualitative data it becomes clear that the awareness of the problematic nature of infant mortality, knowledge on infant care, hygienic practices, breastfeeding practices and the economic situation of World War I were factors aiding to the uneven decline in infant mortality.","PeriodicalId":46118,"journal":{"name":"History of the Family","volume":"28 1","pages":"95 - 131"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49317467","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-06-10DOI: 10.1080/1081602X.2022.2083001
M. L. Perner, A. Mortensen, H. Castenbrandt, A. Løkke, B. Revuelta-Eugercios
ABSTRACT The relationship between gender and mortality in nineteenth-century Europe has been highly debated. In particular, historians disagree about the manner and degree to which gender discrimination affected the mortality risk of the female population. This article contributes by examining the evidence of gendered mortality differences among children and adolescents in nineteenth-century Denmark. It makes use of both child sex ratios and mortality rates to explore the prevalence of excess female mortality. We show that the female mortality rate in Denmark was higher than that of males starting from around age four and lasting until adulthood, for the majority of the nineteenth century. This mortality gap, while initially narrow, was systematic and most pronounced in rural areas and during late adolescence. The gap was produced by a faster mortality decline among males. This pattern is clear both in time, as the gap widened during the nineteenth century, and during the life course, as the male mortality rate declined faster and reached lower levels during late childhood and early adolescence. While it is possible that various forms of gender discrimination slowed the mortality decline of females, the aggregated nature of the data limits our interpretation. However, by comparing the two mortality measures employed, we argue that in a low child-mortality setting such as Denmark, sex ratios are not always sensitive enough to measure excess female mortality in childhood. Further, since sex ratios primarily excel at measuring ‘hidden’ or unregistered mortality, they may be a suboptimal measure of mortality differences in the presence of a thorough and reliable vital registration system.
{"title":"Gendered mortality of children and adolescents in nineteenth-century Denmark. Exploring patterns of sex ratios and mortality rates","authors":"M. L. Perner, A. Mortensen, H. Castenbrandt, A. Løkke, B. Revuelta-Eugercios","doi":"10.1080/1081602X.2022.2083001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1081602X.2022.2083001","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The relationship between gender and mortality in nineteenth-century Europe has been highly debated. In particular, historians disagree about the manner and degree to which gender discrimination affected the mortality risk of the female population. This article contributes by examining the evidence of gendered mortality differences among children and adolescents in nineteenth-century Denmark. It makes use of both child sex ratios and mortality rates to explore the prevalence of excess female mortality. We show that the female mortality rate in Denmark was higher than that of males starting from around age four and lasting until adulthood, for the majority of the nineteenth century. This mortality gap, while initially narrow, was systematic and most pronounced in rural areas and during late adolescence. The gap was produced by a faster mortality decline among males. This pattern is clear both in time, as the gap widened during the nineteenth century, and during the life course, as the male mortality rate declined faster and reached lower levels during late childhood and early adolescence. While it is possible that various forms of gender discrimination slowed the mortality decline of females, the aggregated nature of the data limits our interpretation. However, by comparing the two mortality measures employed, we argue that in a low child-mortality setting such as Denmark, sex ratios are not always sensitive enough to measure excess female mortality in childhood. Further, since sex ratios primarily excel at measuring ‘hidden’ or unregistered mortality, they may be a suboptimal measure of mortality differences in the presence of a thorough and reliable vital registration system.","PeriodicalId":46118,"journal":{"name":"History of the Family","volume":"27 1","pages":"679 - 701"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46078937","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-05-19DOI: 10.1080/1081602X.2022.2075426
K. Thompson, F. Portrait
ABSTRACT Height and labor market outcomes appear to be related to one another. The taller people are, the more likely they are to have better jobs and to earn more money. This is especially the case for men. However, whether height is causally related to labor market outcomes is an open question, which instrumental variable (IV) analysis may help to answer. To our knowledge, no study has yet used IV analysis to test these relationships in a historical context. The present study addressed this gap, by examining height’s relationship to occupational status and intergenerational mobility in a sample of Dutch men, birth years 1850 through 1900. Data were drawn from: the Historical Sample of the Netherlands, providing life course information on the research person; the Heights and Life Courses Database, providing information on the research person’s height at conscription; and the Male Kin Height Database, providing information on the average height of the research person’s full brothers. This combination of data sources yielded a sample of 1,465 men. Height z-score’s relationships to occupational status (characterized as HISCAM score), and to intergenerational mobility (characterized as the difference between research person’s HISCAM score and father’s HISCAM score) were examined. The average of brothers’ heights z-score was used as an instrumental variable. In terms of results, one standard deviation increase in height was associated with a 1.370 increase in HISCAM score (95% CI: 0.310–2.429), and a 1.127 increase in intergenerational mobility score (95% CI: −0.114–2.368). As Dutch men were growing taller and had greater abilities to choose their occupations, it appeared that tallness was associated with a better job, and increased intergenerational occupational mobility. This study thus offered preliminary evidence that height and labor market outcomes were perhaps causally related during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
{"title":"Height, occupation, and intergenerational mobility: an instrumental variable analysis of Dutch men, birth years 1850-1900","authors":"K. Thompson, F. Portrait","doi":"10.1080/1081602X.2022.2075426","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1081602X.2022.2075426","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Height and labor market outcomes appear to be related to one another. The taller people are, the more likely they are to have better jobs and to earn more money. This is especially the case for men. However, whether height is causally related to labor market outcomes is an open question, which instrumental variable (IV) analysis may help to answer. To our knowledge, no study has yet used IV analysis to test these relationships in a historical context. The present study addressed this gap, by examining height’s relationship to occupational status and intergenerational mobility in a sample of Dutch men, birth years 1850 through 1900. Data were drawn from: the Historical Sample of the Netherlands, providing life course information on the research person; the Heights and Life Courses Database, providing information on the research person’s height at conscription; and the Male Kin Height Database, providing information on the average height of the research person’s full brothers. This combination of data sources yielded a sample of 1,465 men. Height z-score’s relationships to occupational status (characterized as HISCAM score), and to intergenerational mobility (characterized as the difference between research person’s HISCAM score and father’s HISCAM score) were examined. The average of brothers’ heights z-score was used as an instrumental variable. In terms of results, one standard deviation increase in height was associated with a 1.370 increase in HISCAM score (95% CI: 0.310–2.429), and a 1.127 increase in intergenerational mobility score (95% CI: −0.114–2.368). As Dutch men were growing taller and had greater abilities to choose their occupations, it appeared that tallness was associated with a better job, and increased intergenerational occupational mobility. This study thus offered preliminary evidence that height and labor market outcomes were perhaps causally related during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.","PeriodicalId":46118,"journal":{"name":"History of the Family","volume":"28 1","pages":"278 - 308"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41411462","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-05-08DOI: 10.1080/1081602X.2022.2071322
Isabelle Cherkesly, R. Kippen
ABSTRACT Between 1840 and 1853, 4,068 Irish convict women arrived in Van Diemen’s Land, now known as Tasmania. The lives of these convicts were governed by the penal system. Convicts were kept under constant observation. While still under sentence, convicts had to follow the strict rules of the penal government. A way out of this system was through marriage. Early on, the penal government had emphasized the role of marriage to reform convicts. Although marriage was a key event in the life of convicts, no study has yet to focus on this event. In this paper, marriage patterns of Irish convict women are studied using a mixed methods approach. This study provides a better understanding of how women met their spouses and which women could marry. Three critical aspects of marriage are highlighted. First, being under incarceration or being prohibited by the law reduced access to the marriage market. Second, women who were perceived as more fertile and of a better character had a higher chance of finding a spouse. Third, women with longer sentences or who were pregnant out of wedlock had a higher incentive for marriage than most. Overall, three factors were key to marriage in Tasmania: access, value, and desire.
{"title":"Marriage patterns of Irish convict women in nineteenth-century Tasmania","authors":"Isabelle Cherkesly, R. Kippen","doi":"10.1080/1081602X.2022.2071322","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1081602X.2022.2071322","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Between 1840 and 1853, 4,068 Irish convict women arrived in Van Diemen’s Land, now known as Tasmania. The lives of these convicts were governed by the penal system. Convicts were kept under constant observation. While still under sentence, convicts had to follow the strict rules of the penal government. A way out of this system was through marriage. Early on, the penal government had emphasized the role of marriage to reform convicts. Although marriage was a key event in the life of convicts, no study has yet to focus on this event. In this paper, marriage patterns of Irish convict women are studied using a mixed methods approach. This study provides a better understanding of how women met their spouses and which women could marry. Three critical aspects of marriage are highlighted. First, being under incarceration or being prohibited by the law reduced access to the marriage market. Second, women who were perceived as more fertile and of a better character had a higher chance of finding a spouse. Third, women with longer sentences or who were pregnant out of wedlock had a higher incentive for marriage than most. Overall, three factors were key to marriage in Tasmania: access, value, and desire.","PeriodicalId":46118,"journal":{"name":"History of the Family","volume":"28 1","pages":"37 - 66"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41870143","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-05-05DOI: 10.1080/1081602X.2022.2067209
D.B.G.W. Lyna
ABSTRACT Challenging the optimistic thesis on female Asian agency in the early modern Dutch empire, this article studies widows’ socio-legal position in the cross-cultural setting of colonial Sri Lanka. Normative legislation and judicial records on stepfamilial feuds from eighteenth-century Dutch Sri Lanka allow us not only to understand how both litigating parties tried to work the Roman-Dutch legal system to get a favorable verdict, but also to unveil the underlying societal expectations of widows and stepchildren. Whereas in the Dutch Republic husbands often used prenuptial agreements or last wills to make their wives principal heirs or give them usufruct (thus increasing the customary half of ab intestato inheritances), Sri Lankan case-studies indicate that such legal documents were also used to reduce life choices of widows. Prenups and last wills drafted up and signed by their late husbands tied these women to their primary role as caretaker of both their own children as well as those of previous marriages. Further stipulations could even tie them quite literally to the parental house, which they were not allowed to leave for a longer period of time without losing their inheritance. These rules of engagement put additional strain on already fraught relationships between stepmothers and first-marriage children. The only structural solution for both parties was that the stepmother married another man, freeing both herself and the stepchildren of a difficult balancing act.
{"title":"Restrained freedom? Widows, blended families and inheritance in eighteenth-century urban Sri Lanka","authors":"D.B.G.W. Lyna","doi":"10.1080/1081602X.2022.2067209","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1081602X.2022.2067209","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Challenging the optimistic thesis on female Asian agency in the early modern Dutch empire, this article studies widows’ socio-legal position in the cross-cultural setting of colonial Sri Lanka. Normative legislation and judicial records on stepfamilial feuds from eighteenth-century Dutch Sri Lanka allow us not only to understand how both litigating parties tried to work the Roman-Dutch legal system to get a favorable verdict, but also to unveil the underlying societal expectations of widows and stepchildren. Whereas in the Dutch Republic husbands often used prenuptial agreements or last wills to make their wives principal heirs or give them usufruct (thus increasing the customary half of ab intestato inheritances), Sri Lankan case-studies indicate that such legal documents were also used to reduce life choices of widows. Prenups and last wills drafted up and signed by their late husbands tied these women to their primary role as caretaker of both their own children as well as those of previous marriages. Further stipulations could even tie them quite literally to the parental house, which they were not allowed to leave for a longer period of time without losing their inheritance. These rules of engagement put additional strain on already fraught relationships between stepmothers and first-marriage children. The only structural solution for both parties was that the stepmother married another man, freeing both herself and the stepchildren of a difficult balancing act.","PeriodicalId":46118,"journal":{"name":"History of the Family","volume":"27 1","pages":"596 - 617"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48695799","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-05-01DOI: 10.1080/1081602X.2022.2067579
J. Kok
ABSTRACT Early-life experiences can have lasting effects on health across multiple generations. The pathways of these transgenerational transmissions are difficult to explore, because of the complex interactions of social and biological factors involved. This study explores the potential role of one such pathway – inherited epigenetic modifications to gene expression – by controlling for shared environmental factors. It uses a database constructed from descendant genealogies of six lineages from Texel Island, The Netherlands. Heights and life spans of respectively 2761 and 3279 19-year old boys are related to the early-life experiences of themselves, parents and grandparents. Adversity in early-life is studied through trauma and food deprivation. Adversity has clear effects, especially on heights, but few of these effects were transmitted to children and grandchildren.
{"title":"Transgenerational effects of early-life experiences on descendants’ height and life span. An explorative study using Texel Island (Netherlands) genealogies, 18th-21st centuries","authors":"J. Kok","doi":"10.1080/1081602X.2022.2067579","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1081602X.2022.2067579","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Early-life experiences can have lasting effects on health across multiple generations. The pathways of these transgenerational transmissions are difficult to explore, because of the complex interactions of social and biological factors involved. This study explores the potential role of one such pathway – inherited epigenetic modifications to gene expression – by controlling for shared environmental factors. It uses a database constructed from descendant genealogies of six lineages from Texel Island, The Netherlands. Heights and life spans of respectively 2761 and 3279 19-year old boys are related to the early-life experiences of themselves, parents and grandparents. Adversity in early-life is studied through trauma and food deprivation. Adversity has clear effects, especially on heights, but few of these effects were transmitted to children and grandchildren.","PeriodicalId":46118,"journal":{"name":"History of the Family","volume":"28 1","pages":"417 - 433"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45842455","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-05-01DOI: 10.1080/1081602x.2022.2056228
M. Moran
ABSTRACT This article examines the relationship between patrician stepmothers and stepdaughters in early modern Florence. With the high rate of remarriage, stepfamilies were not uncommon though the intimate workings of these complex family relationships are often difficult to reconstruct. The account book and correspondence of Maddalena Ricasoli reveal that enduring bonds between stepmothers and stepdaughters could develop and last beyond the death of the male figure who brought them together. Both Maddalena Ricasoli and her stepdaughter, Maria Arrigucci Carducci, worked together to divide family assets in the aftermath of Filippo Arrigucci’s death in the mid-sixteenth century. Maddalena’s niece, Cassandra Ricasoli, also strategically formed complicated female kinship ties to her own stepmother and half-siblings after her father’s remarriage as well as to her aunt Maddalena and Maddalena’s stepdaughter, Maria Carducci. These case studies suggest that women incorporated stepmothers and stepdaughters into their female networks and reveal a more inclusive conception of the early modern family that moved beyond the patriline.
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