The Jews of early modern Marburg, 1640s—1800: A case study in family and household organization

This article examines Jewish household and family organization in a middle-sized German city, the Upper Hessian regional center of Marburg, the population of which ranged from 2500 to 6000 from the Thirty Years War to the end of the 18th century. Some general hypotheses about population development, household structure, and family life conveniently summarized by Toch [Toch, M. (1995). Aspects of stratification in early modern German Jewry: Population history and village Jews. In R. P. Hsia & H. Lehmann (Eds.). In and out of the ghetto: Jewish-Gentile relations in late medieval and early modern Germany (pp. 77-89). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press] serve as an organizational frame for the case study. In Toch's view, Jews' comparative wealth, as well as governmental restrictions on their settlement and marriage in central Europe, led to their having larger and more complex households than those of the Christian majority. While household enumerations over time confirm several of Toch's observations, especially the larger size of Jewish families, neither Hessian settlement policy nor local Marburg opposition prevented the Jewish minority of about 1% from keeping pace with general population growth. Moreover, Jews did not respond to their regulated living conditions and status as cultural outsiders with a family organization exhibiting remarkably more internal complexity than did Christian households.     

Social structure of the Jewish quarter in Vienna during the liberal era (1850–1900)

The article examines the nature of residential and coresidential patterns in the second half of the 19th century in a district of Vienna known as Leopoldstadt, which had a large Jewish population. Analysis of a database from this district, paying attention to occupation and class variables, suggests that the Jewish population therein was more mixed than traditional interpretations suggest, and that the concentration of Jews there can plausibly be explained mainly by reference to residential choices made by Jews to live near an economic infrastructure that catered to their religious and cultural needs. The patterns identified in the data suggest further that in interpreting the residential patterns of the city it is necessary to conceptualize the problem as one of interaction between religion, economics, and residential choice.     

The Nature and Correlates of Dating Violence among Jewish and Arab Youths in Israel

The objectives of this research were to assess the prevalence and severity of dating violence among Jewish and Arab, male and female Israeli youths, to examine the sociodemographic variables related to dating violence among Israeli adolescents, and to assess whether the variables correlated with dating violence differ among Jewish and Arab, male and female youths. The random sample consisted of 1357 students (640 Jewish and 717 Arab youths). We used five types of dating violence measures: threatening, relational, physical, sexual, and verbal abuse. The principal finding is that dating violence is very high among Israeli youths, especially among Arabs. Males show higher mean scores of dating violence, but females are involved in every type of dating violence. The discussion attempts to explain the differences between the two cultures and genders, and considers the theoretical and practical implications of the results.     

The Jewish population and family in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in the second half of the 18th century

The sources that can be employed to examine demographic aspects of the Jewish population and family in 18th-century Poland–Lithuania are sparse and mostly fiscal in origin. Since this source material has been preserved only for some periods and regions, few generalizations can be made. First, the authors have referred to the most comprehensive census that was carried out in 1791 by household in Cracow province (województwo krakowskie). It does not allow for detailed family reconstitution, however. Although extended/multiple family households might have been fairly common, the two-generational conjugal family unit seems to have prevailed, and no more than four nuclear families lived in one house. In addition, the age at first marriage was influenced only to a limited extent by the traditional practice of early marriage.     

Kinship-based resource sharing in the agrarian economy of frontier Slavonia, 1698: Evidence from an early census

The limiting factor of grain cultivation in frontier Slavonia was the number of oxen. Having oxen in the kinship network increased grain cultivation, but having oxen simply in the neighborhood did not. Exchanging oxen was more important than exchanging human labor. The marginal productivity of oxen declines more slowly than that of workers. There were constant returns to scale in a non-intensive unsophisticated autarkic agricultural economy. Grain production could be increased only by increasing the amount of land cultivated. Land area functioned as a major determinant of fertility. There was no incentive to control fertility as long as land was abundant and there were no declining returns to marginal land. Eventually, land became scarce and more difficult to cultivate. The census of 1698 sets the economic stage for a Malthusian response to scarcity—autarkic economic units that internalized all costs of childbearing and achieved efficiencies only in the exchange of capital (oxen).     

The 1881 census in the Russian Baltic provinces: An inventory and an assessment

The 1881 census of the Russian Baltic provinces of Livland, Estland, and Kurland was the first modern-type systematic population enumeration in the Baltic area. It had been preceded by enumerations of other kinds—land cadastres that included aggregate population counts (during Swedish control of the area) in the 17th century, and fiscal revisions (during Russian control of the area) that did list residents by name but did not follow any principles of modern census-taking. The Baltic German politico-economic elite, which controlled public affairs in the Baltic provinces, decided to carry out a census of a modern kind, and produced the 1881 count. Although initially the initiative was coordinated by the statistical specialists of the three provinces, the publication of results was decentralized, resulting in a series of volumes that supplied different tables for each province. The article analyzes the contents of the census, some of its shortcomings, as well as its strengths.     

The dynamics of household structure in the event of the father's death

This article looks at the survival strategies used in traditional societies by households that were greatly disrupted by the death of the father, usually their principal provider. Research is based on data from two parish censuses (1716 and 1744) of the city of Québec that describe the composition of urban households. Data from the Registre de la Population du Québec Ancien (RPQA), the register of the Québec population before 1800, were also used to complement the information required. Depending on the survival of a mother after the father's death, it appears that households could maintain their nuclear structure, except for those who were dispersed among other households.     

The evolution of mortality in an industrial town: Le Creusot in the nineteenth century

The article examines the population of the town of Le Creusot in detail with respect to the characteristics and evolution of mortality in the second third of the nineteenth century, during the town's rapid industrial growth. The authors analyze mortality statistics of Le Creusot in relation to other towns in the same department (Saône-et-Loire), to the neighboring city of Lyon, to another industrial town, Seraing, and with France as a whole. The effects of industrialization and the influx of labor on the mortality rate of Le Creusot appear to be undeniable. Life expectancy at birth among inhabitants of Le Creusot in 1836 was thus attained again only in 1876, after forty years of worsening living and environmental conditions. Among the causes noted for excess mortality in industrial towns, it is important to distinguish those due to working conditions (accidents, fatigue) and the direct consequences of industrial activity (factory smoke, toxic waste) from those due to living and housing conditions and the state of public and private hygiene in the town.     

One of the family: Domestic service in early modern Japan

This study investigates the effect of domestic service upon social practice and asks if domestic service led to self-affirmation and individualistic behavior in early modern Japan. It begins by describing various employees classified as domestic servants. Next the role of the servant as a member of the employer's family shows fluid kinship relations that resulted in changes in the family system and family practice. Contemporary theater is used to address some of the conflicting issues that these changes offered as challenges to patriarchal authority and how society reacted to these changes.     

Juridifications and religion in early modern Europe: The challenge of a contextual history of law

To end Europe's great cycle of religious wars, some early modern states imposed a secular ‘rule of law’ in spheres of life previously governed by religion. The following essay compares two instances of this basic fact of seventeenth-century European political history, one German and the other English. In these different religious and political settings, different juridifications were undertaken that do not reduce to manifestations of a single underlying process of social change. Considered in a legal-historical light, early modern juridifications therefore invite a clear disciplinary alternative to the socio-theoretical and socio-critical perspective on juridification associated with Jürgen Habermas. The larger challenge on behalf of legal history is to end the subordination of historical method to critical social theory. This revised version was published online in November 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The dynamics of household structure in the event of the father's death: Québec City in the 18th century

This article looks at the survival strategies used in traditional societies by households that were greatly disrupted by the death of the father, usually their principal provider. Research is based on data from two parish censuses (1716 and 1744) of the city of Québec that describe the composition of urban households. Data from the Registre de la Population du Québec Ancien (RPQA), the register of the Québec population before 1800, were also used to complement the information required. Depending on the survival of a mother after the father's death, it appears that households could maintain their nuclear structure, except for those who were dispersed among other households.     

The sexual distribution of benefits and burdens in the household: Adolescent experiences and expectations

An examination of self-reported contributions to housework and use of resources in the home by 1296 Scottish 16- and 18-year-olds revealed sharp differences between the sexes in both areas. In only one area of housework sampled, household repairs, did boys contribute more often, and in only one area of resources, use of space for friends, did girls benefit more often. Moreover, with respect to housework, sexual inequality was inversely related to social class. Beliefs about sex roles were broadly egalitarian, but weakly related to housework done; among both male and female, contributing to more areas of housework was associated with more egalitarian beliefs. Neither access to resources nor contributions to housework were related to financial contributions made to the household. Generally, the results indicate that sex was the most powerful determinant of both housework and use of resources. It seems that young people are already extensively prepared for inequality in adult sex roles within the family by their own direct experience, if not their sex-role beliefs.     

Rethinking the medical causes of infant death in early modern Europe: a closer look at church registers and medical terminology

The historical roots of the prevailing hypothesis about the main causes of high infant mortality in Europe in the last four centuries are presented in detail focusing on German sources and publications. Assumptions about infections being the main cause of deaths during infancy clearly need to be reevaluated. The terminology of early sources has passed many steps of translation and interpretation. In the old church registers, wording in the local vernacular merely described the most visible symptoms before the final stages of diseases. Scientific medicine and its terminology repeatedly went astray before real pediatric competence was acquired in the nutritional physiology of infants. The combination of different kinds of evidence points to serious flaws in the prevailing hypothesis, while source data and publications confirm a different conclusion: inadequate nutrition due to early weaning and unsuitable substitute food caused the specific set of symptoms described in the historical sources. Medical evidence about infant malnutrition in developing countries supports this new interpretation.     

The anatomical diaspora: evidence of early American anatomical traditions in North Dakota

The current focus in forensic anthropology on increasing scientific certainty in ancestry determination reinforces the need to examine the ancestry of skeletal remains used for osteology instruction. Human skeletal remains were discovered on the University of North Dakota campus in 2007. After recovery, the osteological examination resulted in a profile for a 33- to 46-year-old woman of African descent with stature ranging from 56.3 to 61.0 in. The pattern of postmortem damage indicated that the remains had been prepared for use as an anatomical teaching specimen. Review of the American history of anatomical teaching revealed a preference for Black subjects, which apparently extended to states like North Dakota despite extremely low resident populations of people of African descent. This study emphasizes the need to examine the ancestry of older teaching specimens that lack provenience, rather than assuming they are derived from typical (i.e., Indian) sources of anatomical material.     

The use of referendums in Ireland: an analysis

The referendum is a phenomenon which is becoming increasingly normalised in the constitutional practice of many countries. Ireland is an EU member state with particularly extensive experience of the referendum as a decision-making tool. To date, it has held 39 referendums on a variety of issues – ranking it among the top four states in Western Europe in this regard.

This article seeks to review the emergence of referendums in Ireland as a decision-making instrument and to ask what constitutional, legal or institutional factors have led to referendums enjoying such comparatively extensive use there. It seeks to examine which political issues have formed the subject of referendums in Ireland, and to investigate what kinds of issues have succeeded in gaining electoral approval and what kinds have not. The extent of electoral participation in (and thus representativity of) Irish referendums is also scrutinised, and factors affecting participation rates examined.     

The formation of early stage adipocere in submerged remains: a preliminary experimental study

In some circumstances, the presence of adipocere may retard decomposition and complicate postmortem interval estimation. This article explores the correlation between Accumulated Degree Days (ADD) and early stage formation of adipocere. Sixty wild rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) carcasses were used in this experiment; a control group (N = 30) deposited directly on the ground surface and an experimental group (N = 30) completely submersed in water in individual buckets. Data (water and inner body temperature, pH, and total body score) were collected every 100 ADD. Results indicated that early stage adipocere is correlated to ADD and that its formation on submersed remains is more likely to occur after 630 ADD. Skin sloughing promoted the formation of adipocere. No adipocere was formed on any of the control group rabbits. This study also highlights the fact that multiple factors influence adipocere formation and it is suggested that further research needs to be conducted into this area.     

The urban household in Russia and the Soviet Union, 1900–2000: Patterns of family formation in a turbulent century

Starting from census data on co-residence and household composition, the authors analyse principles of family organisation and family formation in twentieth-century urban Russia and the Soviet Union. The article uses an adapted version of the classification of households developed by Peter Laslett and Eugene Hammel to study variation in household structure for successive population censuses. Changes in this variation between cross-sections are explained with the help of additional quantitative and qualitative data and are linked to the fundamental demographic, social and economic shifts which took place in Russian society in the course of the twentieth century. The article finds a family system characterised by a tendency towards nuclear family formation, but incorporating a fairly stable element of household extension. Co-residence of three generations was both an answer to a perennial housing problem and offered important advantages in the sphere of childcare and care for the elderly. Variation and fluctuation in household structure are found to be most pronounced during the turbulent first half of the century. After a period of stability during the post-war decades of Soviet rule, post-Soviet transformations provoke new changes.     

The relationship between antisocial stereotypes and public CCTV systems: exploring fear of crime in the modern surveillance society

Abstract

Situational crime deterrence measures like CCTV are not always associated with reductions in fear of crime. This study explores this unexpected finding by investigating the interaction between target type and the presence of a CCTV camera, in order to test the effect this has on impressions of the target and corresponding fear of the location the target was shown in. Participants (n=120) were shown either a picture of a male ‘skinhead’, a ‘studious’ female, or no one within an urban setting in which an obvious CCTV camera was either present or absent. Participants then rated the scene using scales estimating crime frequency, worry and target activity. Estimates of location safety fell for the male ‘skinhead’ target and activity impressions were more negative, but only when a CCTV camera was also present. Ironically, in some circumstances, public crime deterrence measures may prime pre-existing negative stereotypes about others and so foster suspicion, undermine trust in others, and increase fear of crime.