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Thursday 25 March 2021 14.30 - 15.45
M-7 FAM02 A Haven in a Heartless World? The Logics of Marriage, Remarriage and Divorse
M
Network: Family and Demography Chair: Tim Riswick
Organizers: - Discussant: Tim Riswick
Gabriel Brea Martinez, Joana Maria Pujadas-Mora & Miquel Valls Fígols : Could my Sibling Determine my Own Marriage? Individual Determinants of Marriage Formation in the Barcelona Area, 16th-17th Centuries
Marriages during the Old Regime were a truly familiar issue. Families agreed whether their offspring could marry or not, with whom or when. Accordingly, the sibship size, birth order, gender or ages were used tactically for constituting new marriages into particular economic and legal context, mainly when regarding impartible inheritance ... (Show more)
Marriages during the Old Regime were a truly familiar issue. Families agreed whether their offspring could marry or not, with whom or when. Accordingly, the sibship size, birth order, gender or ages were used tactically for constituting new marriages into particular economic and legal context, mainly when regarding impartible inheritance systems (single-heir). Such strategical conception in the marriage of the offspring may point out a clear intention from families in order to avoid the resource dilution. However, empirical results from studies controlling for sibship size in the social opportunities within individuals have not shown so far any concluding effect.

The aim of this paper is to explore how family members as siblings could influence the marriage formation in social terms of other siblings, controlling for sibship size, birth order or gender. In this sense, we are inspired by the life course theory and its linked lives paradigm in order to understand if behaviours from some individuals may influence behaviours of others, knowing that an important number of researches has shown the high influence of parents in their descendants’ social outcomes. For doing so, we use data from the Barcelona Historical Marriage Database (BHMD) gathering the marriage licences of the Barcelona Diocese for the period 1451 - 1905. These marriage licenses were paid by each marriage according to the social status of spouses with the purpose of contributing to the building and maintenance of the Barcelona Cathedral as the Pope Benedict XIII ruled in 1409. The Barcelona Diocese was comprised of the main urban and population cores at the time, as Barcelona, Mataró, Sabadell and Terrassa. Specifically, we will use the period 1547- 1645 for which the occupation of grooms and groom’s and bride’s daughters were recorded, otherwise brides could not be included into the analysis.

Among the first results, as expected in this kind of societies there were remarkable levels of social endogamy within the marriage formation when controlling by the social group of parents of both spouses. Nevertheless, among sons and daughters with different occupations than their progenitors it can be seen that 34% of them held the same social or occupational groups of their first-born siblings (which had different occupations of their fathers), granting insights to the idea that eldest siblings could also have influenced the social destination of younger siblings at the time of their marriages. In this way, the next step in our analysis will be applying multilevel models aiming at measuring not only the social influence from parents or elder siblings, but also the impact derived from the sibship size, gender and birth order within the formation of new families. Accordingly, we will use the so called sibling models through a multilevel approach, given that these kind of models allow analysing the similarities between siblings controlling for all the characteristics that siblings usually share within a common context and thus impeding an independent behaviour. (Show less)

Hideko Matsuo, Koen Matthijs : Marriage Seasonality Trends from Early 19th to Early 20th Century, Analysis Based on Two Provinces in Flanders
This paper examines the role of secularization on marriage seasonality in two Flemish provinces (i.e. West Flanders and Flemish Brabant), distinguished by marriage order (i.e. first and remarriages), place of marriage (i.e. usually place of residence or birth place of bride) and social class of bride and bridegroom. We assess ... (Show more)
This paper examines the role of secularization on marriage seasonality in two Flemish provinces (i.e. West Flanders and Flemish Brabant), distinguished by marriage order (i.e. first and remarriages), place of marriage (i.e. usually place of residence or birth place of bride) and social class of bride and bridegroom. We assess the presence and the evolution of church control (church ban on marriage during Lent/Advent) to measure levels of secularization from early 19th to early 20th century, and examine how these changes were reflected in the marriage index (i.e. timing of the wedding ceremony during Advent/Lent). We study if any of these changes are observed within and across provinces distinguishing rural/urban areas, marriage order and social class through the so-called ‘daily Lent/Advent’ (DLA) marriage index as opposed to the monthly index. Civil marriage registers, 414,277 units in 257 municipalities for West Flanders and 600,240 units in 276 municipalities for Flemish Brabant, are analysed. Descriptive statistics and multi-level logistic regression models are applied to examine geographical/period effects on marriage seasonality. When DLA-marriage index values are small, religious rules are respected, whereas when they are high, they are not. DLA-index values are low in early 19th century which slowly increase in 19th century illustrating increasing level of secularization. Between periods of Lent/Advent, this value is higher for Advent than for Lent indicating that religious rule of Advent is more moderate than the one for Lent. DLA-index values differ because of varying actual seasonal labour activities, social class, and the level of religious adherence. These values are high in urban areas than rural ones, but also among remarriages than first marriages, illustrating reduced religious compliance and secularization. (Show less)

Jean-Francois Mignot, Sandra Bree : Risking Divorce in France since the 19th Century
Despite recent research, knowledge about the history of divorce remains limited. Moreover, studies based on individual data are rare, including on France (with the exception of two Master's theses).
The French Family surveys (enquêtes “Famille”) provide information on divorce among people in France since the (female) generation born in 1899. These ... (Show more)
Despite recent research, knowledge about the history of divorce remains limited. Moreover, studies based on individual data are rare, including on France (with the exception of two Master's theses).
The French Family surveys (enquêtes “Famille”) provide information on divorce among people in France since the (female) generation born in 1899. These surveys are complementary to the census and focus on family history, fertility and nuptiality. The first survey was implemented in 1954 and was followed by those of 1975, 1982, 1990, 1999 and 2011. The first two concern women only, but men have been interviewed since 1982. In addition, the latest wave of the Family surveys (2011) makes it possible to study the dissolution of Pacs (civil union) among both different-sex and same-sex couples.
These surveys make it possible to follow the family and reproductive history of individuals and to describe the history of couples without the need to reconstitute families (it also makes it possible to include mobile families, by contrast with the Henry method). They give individual information on surveyed respondents’ dates of birth and marriage(s) and divorce(s), as well as their children (number and sex and dates of birth and death). They also provide information on respondents’ educational level and region of residence.
By using so-called life course or biographical analysis methods, it is possible to analyse the risk that couples of a certain marriage cohort have of divorcing, depending on the period and their marriage duration, age, educational level (the only proxy variable of social level that varies little or not over time, which is essential for retrospective analysis), number of children and region of residence (their birthplace, on the other hand, is not indicated). (Show less)

Ingrid van Dijk, Jan Kok : Kept in the Family: Remarriage, Siblings, and Consanguinity in The Netherlands 1812 - 1927
Widowhood involves many practical challenges next to the emotional challenges of bereavement. Remarriage may constitute a solution to generating an income for the family as well as providing childcare to the couples’ children. A particular case is remarriage to blood relatives of the deceased individual, which may carry the benefit ... (Show more)
Widowhood involves many practical challenges next to the emotional challenges of bereavement. Remarriage may constitute a solution to generating an income for the family as well as providing childcare to the couples’ children. A particular case is remarriage to blood relatives of the deceased individual, which may carry the benefit of a blood relation between children and the new spouse as well as issues related to inheritance and access to in-law childcare. Although marriage to the brother or sister of a deceased spouse was forbidden in The Netherlands under the Dutch Civil Law, we observe marriages to siblings of the deceased, as well as marriages to cousins and other distant and “cold” (i.e. non-blood) relatives. In this paper, we explore whether such marriages can be ascribed to chance or whether they were a strategic choice of widows and widowers. We distinguish between widows and widowers in more vulnerable conditions (i.e. with young children and living in poverty) and those in more beneficial conditions. We explore their likelihood to remarry, their (blood) relationship to the new spouse, and changing solutions to the challenges that accompany widowhood over time. (Show less)



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