Network migration,marriage patterns,and adaptation in rural Portugal and among Portuguese immigrants in Argentina, 1870–1980

This article examines marriage patterns among immigrants and their children as a way to analyze the interplay of primary social networks and local conditions in the social adaptation of two communities of Portuguese immigrants in Argentina. Its main focus is on the factors involved in marriages within the same ethnic group and their evolution over time from a comparative perspective. The analysis considers aspects of marital selection in the main places of origin of the immigrants in the Algarve, southern Portugal, and their influence in the places of settlement; the factors that influenced the selection of spouses in both communities by gender and over time; and the changes from the first to the second generation. Factors, such as gender, the nature and rhythm of immigration, and the occupation of the immigrants and their families, proved very important in marital selection. Environmental factors were also significant. Oil production dominated Comodoro Rivadavia, while intensive family farming in a suburban setting characterized Villa Elisa. Through the comparative analysis of these two contrasting, receiving societies, the article examines the interplay between primary social networks based on national and ethnic origin and socioeconomic local conditions.     

Choices and constraints in the migration of families: The central Netherlands, 1850–1940

This study investigates the lives of the women and children who accompanied the soldiers to the British garrison at Gibraltar during the last decades of the 19th century. Marriage in the army was controversial, and officials were divided on the subject: some saw the benefits of married life and realized the large amount of unpaid labor contributed by the women of the regiments; others believed that marriage was the “serious evil of marching regiments.” This study uses a military census taken in 1878 to analyze the age and sex structure of the military population at Gibraltar. Its structure is distinctive with no elderly individuals and few children in their teens. This pattern was the result of army directives, such as those governing the age of dependents and controlling marriage among the troops.     

Coresidence of siblings,half-siblings,and step-siblings in Ancien régime France

A significant proportion of children in ancien régime France lived in broken homes or in blended families, and had to cope with the presence of half-siblings and stepsiblings in the same residence. Reconstructing the family experience with well-documented guardianship accounts, the article compares the lives of children with the experience of their siblings, half-siblings, and stepsiblings, concentrating particularly on the patterns of coresidence. Brothers and sisters were often separated during the guardianship period, some of them being raised in different places for most of their childhood. Half-siblings and stepsiblings lived together for rather short periods of time, because of their difference in age, their birth rank, or their gender. Finally, the lives of those children were closely linked to the administration of their heritage: when both their mothers and fathers were dead, another relative took charge of the guardianship, and often removed the children from a stepparent's home, thus separating half-siblings.     

Youth labor migration and its family setting,The Netherlands 1850–1940

This article is based on the reconstructed life course patterns of about 1500 adolescent men and women, born between 1833 and 1912 in the Dutch province of Utrecht. The incidence of youth migration is investigated by sex, birth period, and birthplace. The influence of the family on the decision to migrate is analyzed with event history techniques. The results are evaluated in the context of regional customs related to the process of leaving home. A large number of persons, between 30 and 55 percent of all unmarried youths, participated in youth migration. However, family strategies were more directed toward keeping offspring from migrating than toward stimulating them to move.     

Sex differentials in phthisis mortality in England and Wales, 1861–1870

In the mid-nineteenth century phthisis, or pulmonary tuberculosis, was the single most important cause of death in England and Wales. It was widely distributed geographically though some areas were worse affected than others. This paper explores aspects of the geography of phthisis mortality in England in the second half of the nineteenth century, with particular attention to the sex differential in mortality from this cause. Phthisis is often thought of as a disease of young women, and throughout much of England and Wales, especially in agricultural areas, women aged between 15 and 40 years were especially vulnerable. However the sex ratio of deaths from phthisis varied greatly from place to place and, in some places where phthisis was prevalent, men rather than young women were at the greatest risk of death. Phthisis mortality was sufficiently important that the geography of the overall sex differential in mortality was to a considerable extent determined by the geography of the sex differential in phthisis mortality. Where phthisis mortality disadvantaged females, the overall sex differential between male and female mortality was small or even negative; where phthisis mortality disadvantaged males, the overall sex differential was large. The paper then considers explanations of geographical variations in the sex differential in phthisis mortality. It is not clear that these are best explained by a ‘bargaining-nutrition’ account which holds that young women in poor households were especially vulnerable to mortality from phthisis because their weak intra-household bargaining position compromised their nutritional status. Other factors, such as the return migration to their native areas of out-migrants who became sick with the disease, and working conditions, especially for females, may have been more important. The final part of the paper considers the implications of the results for explanations of the decline of phthisis mortality between 1860 and 1900.     

Reproductive health,birth control,and fertility change in Sweden,circa 1900–1940

This article deals with two aspects of reproductive health during the latter part of the Swedish fertility decline: failing health as a motive for birth control, and failing health as a possible consequence of illegal abortions. The main argument is that reproductive health was an important factor in most reproductive decisions during this period, a circumstance largely ignored by researchers of the fertility decline. Questions that are addressed include: How can aspects of reproductive health be viewed as explanatory factors of the fertility decline? How did men react to women's need to stop bearing children for health reasons? How did couples seeking abortion, sometimes for health reasons, perceive the risks associated with abortion? A source material mainly consisting of letters, written in the 1930s and sent to the Swedish Association for Sexuality Education, has been used to discern how aspects of health, contraception and abortion were experienced by ordinary men and women. The analysis shows that reproductive health became a motive for birth control, at this point in history, for at least two reasons. Firstly, the experience of childbirth had changed through institutionalization and secularization and, secondly, respectable masculinity was increasingly constructed to include sexual respect towards women. Still, when couples decided to abort, aspects of health were largely ignored. Often abortion was sought because the health risks associated with childbirth were perceived as larger than those associated with abortion. The connection between reproductive health and birth control was, therefore, of a rather complex kind.     

Felony Forfeiture in England,c.1170–1870

For much of English history, offenders punishable with death also forfeited their possessions. This article offers an overview of this long overlooked practice, demonstrating its continuation through to 1870, describing its contours, and charting how and why it changed over time. Intended primarily as a platform for future work, it also elucidates the history of the felony concept. Furthermore, forfeiture – the original, defining feature of felony – was all about property. Thus, the article also suggests that as long as forfeiture survived, the criminal law was shaped by the changing nature of ‘property’ itself.     

The limits of policy: Rural children and work in the United States and New Zealand, 1870–1920

This article uses public documents and first-hand accounts of late 19th and early 20th centuries child life to examine attempts by public policymakers in the United States and New Zealand to change the quality of rural child life in those countries through compulsory schooling and other related measures. These attempts, however, largely failed due to the demands of the farming economy and the unwillingness of public officials to go to extraordinary lengths on behalf of farm children, as opposed to urban children. Rural children's lives would be changed, not by policy, but by technological developments and the vagaries of the farm economy.     

Homicide Trends in Finland and Estonia in 1880–1940: Consequences of the Demographic,Social and Political Effects of Industrialization

While in western Europe and Scandinavia homicide rates reached their all time low during the period of industrialization, in Finland and Estonia they increased considerably. The rapid growth of criminal violence during the late 1800s and first half of the 1900s in these two countries seems to have been the result of interaction of several factors, partly non-simultaneous and unrelated. They do not seem to have been identical either, although the underlying equation was the same: the quick social and economic change following industrialization, and the modernisation of agriculture, the pressures it put especially on the youth in the form of uncertain prospects for the future and a new competition-oriented set of values, connected with the authoritarian political system of Russian Empire, which prevented necessary political reforms and left behind a legacy of social thinking idealizing violence as a political and social instrument. A legacy, which affected large parts of Finnish and Estonian population still for years after the czarist system itself already passed into history. The criminal violence arisen from the equation, however, had quite a different face on the northern coast of the Gulf of Finland from that on the southern one. In Finland the violence was centered in the new forest industrial communities, in Estonia again among the landless population of the countryside.     

Father–child relations in France: Changes in paternal authority in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries

The history of fathers is one of the most suggestive lines of inquiry for understanding adolescents. The power of a father over his children, whether minors or those that had reached their majority, is a simple power, but one that became more complicated. The article assembles the elements needed to illustrate major trends in the long history of paternity. The adoption of the Civil Code in 1804 marked the triumph of a patriarchal system. More than 150 years later, the law of January 4, 1970 abolished paternal authority and replaced it with parental authority. Now, the father could only share parental authority with the mother on the strict condition that he is legally married to her. This seems like a linear movement, but it should be noted that it follows an earlier similar shift.     

Gender contracts in Estonian coastal farming families, 1870–1939

This paper deals with families that lived on the North West coast of Estonia from 1870 to 1939. This period involved a successive transition to a monetary economy for the family farmer and an increasing need for cash to be able to pay rents and debts arising from land purchases. A farm perspective is used to show the complexity of effects of societal changes on the gender division of labour. The study highlights how practices evolve within a specific spatial context in terms of adjustment of gender contracts. It is demonstrated that husbands and wives on farms involved in fishing and seafaring negotiated flexible gender contracts, in which women were flexible and took over men's work. Such contracts evolved when the men were absent from the farm due to fishing and seafaring duties. Flexible gender contracts developed if other solutions, such as hiring farmhands, were impossible to arrange. Small farms could develop a gender contract for collaboration at sea in which women accompanied their husbands on fishing trips. The results, which are based on interviews and archive sources, indicate that the smaller the family farm, the more inclined women were to take over traditional men's work. It is argued that different gender contracts are parallel phenomena and that they often seem to be temporary, since they are evaluated in relation to the standard gender contract that acts as a norm in society.     

Father–child relations in France: Changes in paternal authority in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries

The history of fathers is one of the most suggestive lines of inquiry for understanding adolescents. The power of a father over his children, whether minors or those that had reached their majority, is a simple power, but one that became more complicated. The article assembles the elements needed to illustrate major trends in the long history of paternity. The adoption of the Civil Code in 1804 marked the triumph of a patriarchal system. More than 150 years later, the law of January 4, 1970 abolished paternal authority and replaced it with parental authority. Now, the father could only share parental authority with the mother on the strict condition that he is legally married to her. This seems like a linear movement, but it should be noted that it follows an earlier similar shift.     

Differentials in overall and cause-specific mortality among infants born in and out of wedlock,Stockholm 1878–1925

This study investigates differentials in the decline of cause-specific infant mortality by marital status of the mother in Stockholm (1878–1925) and factors contributing to the explanation of these differentials using computerized records of individual entries from the Roteman Archives. Included in the analysis were 120,094 children less than 1 year of age who lived in Södermalm during this period. Cause-specific mortality rates were calculated for three time periods. Cox's regression analysis was used to study the relationship between overall and cause-specific risk of infant death and of being born in and out of wedlock in relation to a set of variables. Infant mortality rates and mortality risks were higher among children born out of rather than in wedlock. The most pronounced differentials in cause-specific mortality rates between these groups of children were seen in cases of diarrhea. The socioeconomic status of the household head and number of children in the household were statistically significant with infant mortality, but explain only part of the excess mortality risk of children born out of wedlock. In Stockholm at the turn of the 19th century being born out of wedlock was strongly associated with poor health outcomes, particularly in diarrheal diseases, pneumonia/bronchitis, and immaturity/congenital causes.     

The Fragility of Law: Anti-Jewish Decrees,Constitutional Patriotism,and Collaboration Belgium 1940–1944

In October and November 1940, the German Military Command which ruled conquered Belgium, introduced a series of measures aimed at the identification and exclusion of the Jews of that country. The Belgian government of the day refused to allow the measures to be incorporated into Belgian law, but did permit, under their reading of the Hague Convention, government departments and local administrations to assist in implementing the German anti-Jewish Decrees. The Brussels Bar, Prosecutors and Court of Cassation refused to accept the authority of the Occupier to violate basic rights guaranteed under the Belgian Constitution. Officials in Antwerp, on the other hand, struck all lawyers identified as "Jews" from the Roll. This article examines these instances of "constitutional patriotism" and "constitutional betrayal" by these actors in the Belgian legal system, and offers some preliminary discussion of important questions about our historical and current understandings of legality, legitimacy and citizenship in light of this part of the Belgian experience of law under Nazi occupation. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Family in Dutch migration policy 1945–2005

This article looks at how and why the concept of ‘family’ was used in Dutch migration policy in the period between 1945 and 2005. Throughout this period differences were made between migrant women and migrant men. Whereas the migration of men was associated with labour migration, the migration of women was equated with family migration. Migrant women were constructed as wives and mothers (and not as workers). This construction of women was combined with a victimhood discourse in which women were presented as victims of repressive religion (usually Islam), domestic violence, trafficking and prostitution, and discriminatory government policy. The victimhood discourse was successfully used to acquire rights for migrant women (mostly the right to stay), but as a result all migrant women came to be seen as vulnerable and in need of protection. In this article, I show how this combined family and victimhood discourse was used by governments, by (migrant) organizations and, to a lesser extent, in court cases to create differences between migrant men and women. The ‘success’ of the victimhood discourse is not only explained by the fact that it fitted (Western) ideas on femininity. It was also used to give a humanitarian face – albeit beneficial to women only – to an essentially restrictive immigration policy.     

Partying,Cruising, and Hanging in the Streets: Gangs,Routine Activities,and Delinquency and Violence in Chicago, 1959–1962

Objectives

Examine relationships between routine activities, character contests in the form of “signifying,” and general delinquency and fighting in a street gang context.

Methods

Samejima’s (Estimation of latent ability using a response pattern of graded scores. Psychometrika monograph supplement 17. Psychometric Society, Richmond, VA, Retrieved 10 Aug 2011, from http://www.psychometrika.org/journal/online/MN17.pdf, 1969) graded response models and multilevel ordinal logistic regression models are estimated using data from Short and Strodtbeck (Group process and gang delinquency. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1965) study of street gangs in Chicago, 1959–1962. The primary sample consists of 490 boys representing 10 black gangs, 4 white gangs, 9 black lower-class groups, 4 white lower-class groups, 2 black middle-class groups, and 2 white middle-class groups.

Results

Unstructured and unsupervised socializing with peers significantly increased the likelihood of delinquency among the boys and explained a significant portion of the group-level gang effect. In addition, the more time the boys spent hanging in the streets and attending parties, the more likely they were to participate in signifying, which, in turn, increased their risk of fighting.

Conclusions

Findings provide evidence that gangs contribute to delinquency partly through their effect on the routine activities of members. Findings also suggest that signifying is an important mechanism by which unstructured and unsupervised socializing with peers leads to violence.     

Treatment as punishment: Forensic psychiatry in The Netherlands (1870–2005)

This article provides an overview of the development of forensic psychiatry in the Netherlands from the late nineteenth to the early twenty-first century. The first part addresses the ways forensic psychiatry established itself in the period 1870–1925 and focuses on its interrelatedness with forensic practice, psychiatry's professionalization, the role of the government, the influence of the so-called New Direction in legal thinking and (Italian and French) anthropology of crime, and the debates among physicians as well as between psychiatrists and legal experts on the proper approach of mentally disturbed offenders. From the mid-1920s on the so-called ‘psychopaths laws’ anchored forensic psychiatry in the Dutch legal system. The second part zooms in on the enactment of these laws, which formalized special measures for mentally disturbed delinquents. These implied a combination of sentencing and forced admission to and treatment in a mental institution or some other form of psychiatric surveillance. The article deals with the meaning, reach and consequences of this legislation, its debate by psychiatrists and legal experts, the number of delinquents affected, the offenses for which they were sentenced and the (therapeutic) regime in forensic institutions. The goal of the Dutch legislation on psychopaths was ambiguous: if it was designed to protect society against assumed dangerous criminals, at the same time they were supposed to receive psychiatric treatment to enable their return to regular social life again. These legal and medical objectives were at odds with each other and as a result discussions about collective versus individual interests as well as about the usefulness and the effects of this legislation kept flaring up. To this day the history of this legislation is characterized by the intrinsic tension between punishment and security on the one hand and treatment and re-socialization on the other. Whether at some point one or the other prevailed was largely tied to the social climate with respect to law, order and authority.     

Illegal entrepreneurs: a comparative study of the liquor trade in Stockholm and New Orleans 1920–1940

The 1920s were a golden period for smuggling in Nordic waters, as systems of prohibition were established in Finland, Norway and Iceland, while in Sweden an intricate system of rationing was implemented in 1917. A comparative study of the illegal liquor trade in Stockholm and New Orleans shows that the actual methods of smuggling were similar in the two cities. Mother ships brought the cargo to a point outside territorial waters, where it was shifted to smaller boats. These brought the liquor in through the archipelago of Stockholm or the bayous of the Mississippi delta. The relative lack of corruption in Sweden did not limit the extent of the black market. According to contemporary estimates, the amount of smuggled liquor was about the same in the two cities. The kind of alcohol that was brought in was different, however, and the value of the trade higher in New Orleans. Also, the organization of the trade differed, in terms of ownership and distribution. In neither city did the illegal entrepreneurs appear to be very violent. The fact that the rate of violence was much higher in New Orleans, than in Stockholm, did not seem to affect their business methods.     

Race,economy and punishment: inequity and racial disparity in imprisonment, 1972–2002

Guided by the Rusche and Kirchheimer thesis, this study examines variation in incarceration rates across states. Time-series regression analysis is applied to 30?years of state-level data to examine how economic factors interact with aggregate measures of race/ethnicity in predicting rates of incarceration. The analysis indicates that income inequality, not unemployment, is the most salient predictor of incarceration rates. That is, state-level measures of income inequality exert a strong, positive effect on state-level incarceration rates, and this effect is particularly salient in the presence of higher percentages of African-Americans.     

Power and inheritance: Male domination,property, and family in eastern Europe, 1500–1900

A widespread inheritance pattern in eastern and southeastern Europe was based on equally partible male inheritance and excluded women from inheritance and dowry. The western transition zone to the other predominant European inheritance systems coincided with the Hajnal line, which divides the distribution of European marriage patterns in historical times. New evidence is added to the historical depth of the cultural–historical transition zone already postulated by Mitterauer. Since the early Middle Ages, this zone also marked the border region of two basic European agrarian systems: the western Grundherrschafts system, which led to the intervention of landlords into inheritance patterns and family structures of the serfs and the non-interventionist tributary systems, which left inheritance practices based on customary laws untouched until the second half of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. The above-mentioned inheritance pattern, which was also widespread in Asia, allocated a huge amount of power to the agnatic core of the family and was part of a patriarchal system shaped by patrilineality, patrilocality, low age at marriage, complex family forms, and fragmentation of the soil when demographic transition set in.