Preliminary Programme

Blended families were composed of individuals of different ages, genders and social ranks who did not always share ties of blood or name, however, were regarded by society as part of the same family network. This meant that developing emotional connections to manage their shared responsibilities and reputations was crucial. Families managed the process of family reconstitution by creating emotional hierarchies of affection and obligation. By focusing on the negotiation of relationships and webs of care within blended family structures, this paper examines how emotions were managed in practice. Correspondence from blended families in sixteenth century England is analysed as evidence of how individuals developed emotional practices to create and negotiate familial bonds throughout the life course. It reveals that individuals were motivated by societal expectation of family roles and exhibited a range of emotional responses in reaction to perceived threats to the smooth running of family life. Stepfamilies were ideally seen as one unit bound by affectionate ties and bonds of loyalty, however, tensions often resulted when individuals of differing status were linked by shared reputations. The individual subjectivities of those involved reveal much about how gender, age and social status shaped family hierarchies. This paper will engage with the question of how far historians can claim to understand individual subjectivities through narrative sources that had a performative element and were often intended to regulate and influence the behaviour of others. By doing so it complicates our understanding of family life in the past and contributes to historiographical debates on the role of affection and obligation in early modern kin networks. Complex networking and negotiation of resources reveals the ways in which blended families could challenge, subvert or uphold the patriarchal ideals of early modern English society. (Show less)

The first attempt to legislate compulsory blood group tests to confirm – or rather to rule out – paternity in Finland came from a nationalist extreme right-wing party in 1938. Court decisions on alimony cases were blamed to give too much consolation for helpless children and unfortunate mothers. The legislation was accomplished after the war following international examples. During the 1950s the law was criticized in the parliament by a group of left-wing women, the rules of timing were accused to cause advantage for the claimed fathers. A new legislation process took place in the early 1960s as a part of joint Nordic cooperation in family law reforms. In addition to blood tests, “anthropological investigations” were regarded as another scientific tool to prove biological heritage. My paper explores the contemporary expectations of the possibilities of modern science to solve legal issues and the incongruous perspectives of medical and legal professionals on the topic. Paternity disputes were of individual interests, but also considered an issue of public advantage, the nomination of the biological father would have saved maintenance costs of illegitimate children paid by the society. (Show less)

Studies on political elites usually revolve around their political or intellectual activity and the role played in the social mechanics of their times, and little is reserved to other aspects, such as their families. This research is aiming to analyze the evolution of familial behavior from a demographic perspective among the German deputies elected from Bohemia and Transylvania first to the parliaments of Vienna and Budapest, and then, after 1918, to Prague and Bucharest, respectively. The choice for German members of the parliamentarian elite resided firstly in their similar socio-, ethnic, and historical background – in both provinces, the German minority had a few centuries long history, full of privileges, which allowed them to have an important role in the 19th and the early 20th century politics; as well as the numerous sources available to reconstitute the families of the studied group, such as parish and civil registers, almanacs, lexicons, newspapers and online databases. The purpose of this research is to observe whether there are differences between the two provinces geographically – influenced by the fact that they were in different parts of Austria-Hungary, and, after 1918, in different countries; and chronologically. Regarding this last aspect, the studied groups have each been split in three generations (those born between 1800-1830; those born between 1831-1860; and those born after 1861), to observe if there are differences from a cohort to another, especially as the first demographic transition also took place during the studied period. Other methods used were family reconstitution and analysis of simple demographic indicators, such as nuptiality, fertility, marriage-birth and birth-birth intervals, and infantile mortality. Given the structural disparities between the two provinces, as well as that changes in fertility characteristic to the first demographic transition that occur only towards the end of the 19th century, my hypothesis, based on information gathered until now, is that there are both spatial and temporal differences in terms of familial behavior, despite the ethnic and social similarities of the two studied groups. Regardless of the validity of my hypothesis, this research may help in better understanding what were the main factors that contributed to the first demographic transition and whether (part of) the political elite behaved differently from what the theory suggests. (Show less)