Widowhood options and strategies in preindustrial northern Europe: Socioeconomic differences in household position of the widowed in 18th and 19th century Finland |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Université de Lyon, Laboratoire Magmas et Volcans, UJM-UCA-CNRS-IRD, 23 rue Dr. Paul Michelon, 42023 Saint Etienne, France;2. on sabbatical at School of Earth, Environment and Atmosphere Sciences, Monash University, Clayton, VIC 3168, Australia;3. Institute for Applied Geosciences Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Campus South, Mineralogy and Petrology, Adenauerring 20b, 50.40, D-76131 Karlsruhe, Germany;4. Frankfurt Isotope and Element Research Center (FIERCE), Altenhöferallee 1, D-60438 Frankfurt, Germany;5. Université de Lorraine, CNRS, CREGU, GeoRessources, F-54000 Nancy, France;6. Institute of Geology, Mineralogy und Geophysics, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Universitätsstraße 150, 44801 Bochum, Germany;1. Department of Neurobiology, Physiology and Behavior, University of California Davis, One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616, USA;2. Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, and Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, Palisades, NY 10964, USA;3. The Roslin Institute, The Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, The University of Edinburgh, Easter Bush, Midlothian EH25 9RG, Scotland, UK;4. John H. Prescott Marine Laboratory, Research Department, New England Aquarium, Boston, MA 02110, USA;5. Department of Biological Sciences, Towson University, Towson, MD 21252, USA;1. International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, GPO Box 3226, Kathmandu, Nepal;2. Department of Geography, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, UK |
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| Abstract: | This article reassesses the variety of demographic, social, and economic forces that shaped the residence patterns of widowed and intergenerational relationships in northern Europe in the past. Factors considered include occupational status (landholders and landless), retirement contracts, system of poor relief, age at widowhood, and number of children surviving from previous marriages. Detailed findings are presented for two communities in southwestern Finland. Women in rural western Finland should not be viewed as helpless or dependent. Legally they might never have been the equals of men, but if their lives were affected by a number of restrictions so were those of men. Cooperation with kin and the creation of strategies for maintaining the family land were not unique to southwestern Finland. The stem family indeed had the capacity to act as an institution providing for the maintenance of the old and the young whenever it was supported by stable property. The possibility that this property might pass from the family to nonrelatives provided the motive for detailed retirement contracts. Such contracts did not signal intergenerational tension with the parental generation trying to protect its interests in the face of pressure from the children, as Gaunt [The property and kin relationships of retired farmers in northern and central Europe. In R. Wall (Ed.), Family forms in historic Europe (pp. 249–279). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press] has suggested. With the proletarianization of society in the 19th century, the proportion of poor widows increased. These paupers circulated among farms being taken care of for a specific time at each place. However, even in the late 19th century, landless widows usually did not reside alone. |
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