Women,family, and small business in late nineteenth century Sweden

In Sweden, unmarried women and widows had a long historical tradition of involvement in the retail trades and in handicrafts. They supervised enterprises between the death of their husbands and another male heir, and poor women had the right to become hawkers or innkeepers. During the second half of the nineteenth century, the number of unmarried women increased, and the authorities wanted to open new trades in which women could earn their own living and not become an economic burden on local government. Given these new possibilities, women developed several different strategies, which can be seen in the three Swedish towns of Sundsvall, Härnösand, and Umeå when their business history of the later part of the nineteenth century is examined. Women's business involvements exhibit the older patterns of family survival, but now add motives having to do with status maintenance and emancipation.     

Women,family, and small business in late nineteenth century Sweden

In Sweden, unmarried women and widows had a long historical tradition of involvement in the retail trades and in handicrafts. They supervised enterprises between the death of their husbands and another male heir, and poor women had the right to become hawkers or innkeepers. During the second half of the nineteenth century, the number of unmarried women increased, and the authorities wanted to open new trades in which women could earn their own living and not become an economic burden on local government. Given these new possibilities, women developed several different strategies, which can be seen in the three Swedish towns of Sundsvall, Härnösand, and Umeå when their business history of the later part of the nineteenth century is examined. Women's business involvements exhibit the older patterns of family survival, but now add motives having to do with status maintenance and emancipation.     

The impact of education on the demographic life course: The family reproduction process of literates and illiterates in the Netherlands at the end of the nineteenth century

A widely held assumption is that the decline of illiteracy had a notable impact on the demographic transition in western Europe in the nineteenth century. Literates, it is said, were more open to innovation and were better equipped to control their environment and their destiny. The article examines this hypothesis by looking into the family reproduction process of literates and illiterates who lived in the town of Eindhoven between 1850 and 1900. Using the concept of the life course, the article looks at differences in age at marriage, fertility, and infant and child mortality, and finds that in each category of literacy a certain form of demographic behavior prevailed.     

The demographic consequences of changing employment opportunities: Women in the Dutch Meierij in the nineteenth century

"In the nineteenth century, the demographic development of the Meierij, a region in the south-east of the Netherlands, was different from that of the rest of modernizing northern Europe. Infant mortality remained high, while it dropped elsewhere. The article shows why the current explanation for high infant mortality, which links a sustained high infant mortality to a change in feeding habits is not valid. Increased fertility due, among other reasons, to a lower marital age offers a better explanation. Changes in economic options open to unmarried women provide the clue. With fewer premarital occupational possibilities, women would have been more inclined to marry, or there would have been less pressure on them to forestall a marriage in order to profit to the full from the occupational options. More and earlier marriages meant more children were born, and also a higher infant mortality rate."     

The impact of education on the demographic life course: The family reproduction process of literates and illiterates in the Netherlands at the end of the nineteenth century

A widely held assumption is that the decline of illiteracy had a notable impact on the demographic transition in western Europe in the nineteenth century. Literates, it is said, were more open to innovation and were better equipped to control their environment and their destiny. The article examines this hypothesis by looking into the family reproduction process of literates and illiterates who lived in the town of Eindhoven between 1850 and 1900. Using the concept of the life course, the article looks at differences in age at marriage, fertility, and infant and child mortality, and finds that in each category of literacy a certain form of demographic behavior prevailed.     

Widowhood-related mortality in Scania,Sweden during the 19th century

In this article, mortality risks are empirically examined in connection with spousal bereavement in four parishes in Scania, southern Sweden, during the 19th century using duration analysis. The data are longitudinal and the inhabitants have been followed literally from the cradle to the grave. To simultaneously catch transitory (shock) and persistent (long-term) effects of widowhood on mortality of the surviving spouse, the Cox semiparametric proportional hazards model has been applied with time spent in widowhood as a time-dependent multiple factor. Widowers in general were found to face higher relative mortality risks than widows and the effect of bereavement decreased through time. The estimated relative risks for males were dependent on socioeconomic status and widowers classified as landless faced high relative risks. Quantitatively, the magnitude of our estimates was large in comparison with similar studies made on contemporary data.     

The evolution of commitment law in the nineteenth century

The generally accepted interpretation of the evolution of commitment law in the nineteenth century is challenged by means of an historical investigation of the law's development in a single state—Pennsylvania. Rather than an abrupt switch from relaxed commitment procedures to a system of stringent safeguards, which most historical accounts of the period describe, examination reveals that Pennsylvania law underwent a slow accretion of procedural protections, with the essential discretionary role of families, friends, and physicians left undisturbed. The implications for current policy of this challenge to the traditional account are discussed.     

Widowhood-related mortality in Scania,Sweden during the 19th century

In this article, mortality risks are empirically examined in connection with spousal bereavement in four parishes in Scania, southern Sweden, during the 19th century using duration analysis. The data are longitudinal and the inhabitants have been followed literally from the cradle to the grave. To simultaneously catch transitory (shock) and persistent (long-term) effects of widowhood on mortality of the surviving spouse, the Cox semiparametric proportional hazards model has been applied with time spent in widowhood as a time-dependent multiple factor. Widowers in general were found to face higher relative mortality risks than widows and the effect of bereavement decreased through time. The estimated relative risks for males were dependent on socioeconomic status and widowers classified as landless faced high relative risks. Quantitatively, the magnitude of our estimates was large in comparison with similar studies made on contemporary data.     

Legal restrictions on marriage: Marriage and inequality in the Austrian Tyrol during the nineteenth century

Under the legal restrictions on marriage in the Tyrol and Vorarlberg region of Austria between 1820 and 1920, members of the lower classes could marry only with the prior consent of the village authorities. Local and provincial politicians justified the necessity of these laws on the basis of the overpopulation and widespread impoverishment, which, they alleged, had resulted from the rise in lower-class marriages since the onset of industrialization. An analysis of the background and objectives of these legal interventions into marital behavior, however, reveals a different picture in regard to their effect and their effectiveness. The limitations on marriage affected life most profoundly in precisely those areas where people already tended to marry less often and later in life. Where changes in marital behavior did occur, they did not conflict with traditional behavior but rather resulted from the adaptation of the latter to altered living and working conditions. Thus it was material considerations that led the group of new wage-earners to delay or even forego marriage. The analysis shows that the limitations on marriage were directed less against the supposed causes of impoverishment than towards the continuation of social inequality in marriage and the stabilization of the status quo.     

Surnames,marriage, and consanguinity in eighteenth and nineteenth century haute-provence

A study of the stem family system in a group of villages in Haute-Provence during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries reveals the existence of a high degree of isonymy (same-namedness). The sources employed were marriage contracts and parish registers permitting genealogical reconstitution. Does isonymy always signify a marriage between close relatives bearing the same name? In fact, although the spouses might share a common ancestor, that ancestor might date back many generations. The relatively frequent occurrence of marriages among homonymous spouses should not be interpreted as absolute proof of a union between close relatives. Indeed, heteronymic alliances, even exogamic ones, can hide a marriage between first cousins, if consanguinity is transmitted by the mothers.     

Family enterprise in the Baltic estate economy: The nineteenth century

During the nineteenth century, the Baltic provinces of the Russian Empire exhibited characteristics of economic change typical of Eastern European rural areas where the landed estate and an enserfed peasantry were dominant forces. Family enterprise, other than agricultural enterprise was rare, even among estate owners. The number of estate “manufactories” remained small throughout the first half of the century, and estate owners discouraged peasant entrepreneurship of any kind. Only in the post-1850 decades, as a consequence of reforms enacted by the Imperial government, did rural economic differentiation become sufficiently pronounced to require notice in various census-type enumerations (1881, 1897). Still, family-based peasant entrepreneurship remained exceptional, and reports about it took anecdotal form.     

The impact of disability on partnership formation in Sweden during 1990-2009

ABSTRACT

Evidence suggests that disability negatively affects people’s propensity to find a partner. Persons with disabilities that eventually find a partner do so later in life compared to the average population. There is a lack of studies on the differences in partnership opportunities for persons with disabilities compared to those without disabilities in Sweden. The aim of this study is to assess the impact of disability on partnership formation and to assess whether partnership formation varies as a function of individual demographic and socio-economic factors. We use nationwide data available in the Swedish Initiative for Research on Microdata in Social and Medical Sciences (Umeå SIMSAM Lab). We follow persons born from 1973 to 1977 when they were from 16 to 37 years of age and analyze their data using logistic regression. Our findings indicate that regardless of whether a person started to receive a disability pension at an early age or later, it was associated with lower odds for partnership formation. For persons who started receiving disability pension from 16 to 20 years of age, chances for partnership formation reduced with increase in age of partnership. Individuals that started to receive disability pension later were more likely to form partnership prior to receiving disability pension. Partnership formation was less likely among persons born outside Sweden, in persons with mothers born outside Sweden, in individuals born by unmarried mothers and in persons, whose mothers had a high level of education. Partnership was high among women and among persons who had many maternal siblings. In conclusion, receiving disability pension was associated with reduced chances for partnership formation. Receiving disability pension might imply financial constraints that negatively influence partnership formation supporting Oppenheimer’s theory on the economic cost of marriage and the uncertainty hypothesis.     

English marriages and Scottish divorces in the early nineteenth century

Law printing changed dramatically in the reign of Charles I. This article shows that the legally imposed monopoly on printing books of the common law (the law patent) was breached regularly and seemingly with impunity. Piracy, false attributions of authorship and concerns about quality all appear from the late-1620s onwards. The article explains these changes by stressing a number of factors: changes related to the holder of the patent and those printing under it; difficulties and tensions in the enforcement of the patent; and unauthorized printing creating a more competitive (and therefore challenging) market for law printers.     

The legal nature of shares in landowning joint stock companies in the nineteenth century

This essay examines some of the contexts in which women appear especially in non-royal deeds from the kingdom of Scotland in the years between roughly 1150 and 1350. It is based on a survey of several thousand charters written on behalf of both men and women, native, Anglo-Norman and European. It considers how charter evidence may be used to illuminate the extent to which women both used and shaped the laws and customs that governed the conveyance of land in medieval Scotland, and examines changes in women's legal capacity over time. Recent studies on literacy in later medieval Europe have shown that women participated actively in the literate culture of the period and that they exerted a sometimes profound influence on written texts themselves, and this theme is explored at some length in the context of Scottish charter evidence. Also examined is the extent to which traditional Gaelic customs in respect of women's property rights shaped and influenced the early common law of Scotland.     

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.     

Household,family, and economy among wine-growing peasants: The case of lower Austria in the first half of the nineteenth century

This article discusses commercial viticulture as a peculiar form of agro-economic activity with certain analogies to proto-industry. Using cadastral surveys, parish registers, and census lists from two Lower Austrian villages, the main economic features, the household formation patterns, and the family forms of peasant wine-growers are analyzed within the broader framework of the demographic and social landscape of the Austrian Alpine provinces of the Habsburg monarchy in the nineteenth century. The prevalence of nuclear family forms, low proportions of permanent celibates and illegitimate births, highly fragmented landownership, small numbers of farm servants, and numerous lodgers are shown to be the main characteristics of this smallholder society. Due to the decline of Austrian viticulture in the first half of the nineteenth century, it underwent a process of “re-agrarianisation.”