-
A doctor for the crown princess: child mortality and women’s political agency at the Danish court, 1784–1797 The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2024-09-17 Kristine Dyrmann
This article examines the entwined dynamics of gender, material bodies, and court politics at the Danish, absolutist court during what has been termed the reform reign, 1784–1797. The reform reign ...
-
“Actions speak louder than words: constance of France and motherhood in 12th-century Norman Italy” The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2024-07-19 Erin L. Jordan
In 1106, Constance, the daughter of King Philip I of France, married Bohemond of Antioch, a hero of the First Crusade. After their wedding, the couple returned to Bohemond’s territories in Apulia. ...
-
Trends in assortative mating in the United States, 1700–1910. Evidence from FamiLinx data The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2024-06-23 Giulia Corti, Saverio Minardi, Nicola Barban
Couple formation and assortative mating significantly influence societal structures, as marriages between individuals from diverse geographical or social backgrounds promote intra-family diversity....
-
Tables and families. Value, emotions and aesthetics of conviviality in two culinary manuscripts of the Mexican elites of the 19th century The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2024-06-23 Alberto Peralta de Legarreta
The attributes and cultural meanings of the table as a place for coexistence around food are sources of relevance for the study of the history and daily life of families from the past. The aim of t...
-
Three myths about old age before modernity – and why historians should care The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2024-06-17 Anton Svensson, Jaco Zuijderduijn
Despite the increasing challenges twenty-first-century societies face in accommodating older adults, many misconceptions about old age before modernity continue to exist. These are rarely expressed...
-
‘I praie ye send for the courall’: children’s coral as the physical embodiment of parental hopes and fears in early modern England The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2024-06-07 Francesca Elizabeth Richards
Mediterranean red coral has long been believed to be imbued with sacred, spiritual and healing power and was given to children across Europe in the form of an amulet, teether or medicine. In early ...
-
Unemployment, divorce, and longevity: the major factors of the fertility upward evolution in Tunisia, during 1998-2018: a dynamic panel data analysis The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2024-06-07 Olfa Frini
After a long decline, fertility in Tunisia, as in some Arab countries like Algeria and Egypt, recorded an unexpected increasing trend over the 2000 – 2018 period. To account for such demographic ch...
-
Absent parents, sick children, and epistolary relationships in England, c.1640-c.1750 The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2024-06-03 Emma Marshall
Through an examination of their personal letters, this article explores the ways in which seventeenth- and eighteenth-century gentry parents responded to the illnesses of their children. Correspond...
-
Rebuilding life after slavery. Manumission, emancipation, and family networks in European empires, 1750–1900 The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2024-05-23 Dries Lyna, Kate Ekama, Christine Whyte
Wherever and whenever systems of slavery existed, enslaved people struggled to attain freedom. Spanning various imperial contexts from 1750 to 1920, this special issue convenes a team of scholars t...
-
Racial preferences in dating apps: an experimental approach The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2024-05-14 Ainhoa Arranz Aldana, Leire Salazar
Dating apps can amplify the number and diversity of our potential dates while also enabling us to filter and choose people who are more similar to us. Homogamous preferences and rooted problems lik...
-
Correction The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2024-04-28
Published in The History of the Family (Ahead of Print, 2024)
-
The Wolf, the island and the sea: truancy and escaping slavery in Curacao (1837–1863) The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2024-04-26 Coen W. van Galen, Björn Quanjer
Between 1837–1863, the government on the Dutch colony of Curacao registered the escape attempts from all enslaved persons on the island. By combining the structured information of the ‘register of ...
-
’Whither do you now wish to go?’: slavery, flight and longing in and around Manado (Indonesia) in the age of abolition The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2024-04-25 Alicia Schrikker
The history of slavery in the age of abolition is full of contradictions. The fate of enslaved persons depended on coincidences, on bad luck and good fortune. To understand what this meant in pract...
-
The expatriation act of 1907, marital assimilation, and citizenship-based intermarriage in the U.S. The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2024-04-17 Dafeng Xu
As both a marriage act and an immigration act, the Expatriation Act of 1907 restricted U.S. women’s freedom of marriage by stating that marrying aliens would lead to loss of U.S. citizenship. To st...
-
From pragmatism to passion: changing partner preferences in Dutch matrimonial and contact advertisements, 1841–1995 The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2024-04-11 Karin Wienholts, Sophie Vries, Paul Puschmann
This article explores the evolution of partner preferences in the Dutch mating market from 1841 to 1995, focusing on the rise of the cultural ideal of love-based partner selection. The study examin...
-
On solid ground? Manumitted slaves, land ownership and registration in eighteenth-century Sri Lanka The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2024-04-09 Dries Lyna
In pre-industrial societies subsistence agriculture played a crucial role in ensuring survival, not just for people born free, but also for those born into slavery. Within the legal framework of co...
-
Wanted: marriage partner! Partner preferences in newspaper contact adverts in the Netherlands, 1900-1955 The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2024-03-05 Bibi Koekkoek, Hilde Bras
This study examines romantic and instrumental partner preferences in contact adverts from two Dutch newspapers, the Arnhemsche Courant (N = 283) and the Provinciale Drentsche en Asser Courant (N = ...
-
‘Came to her dressed in mans cloaths’: transgender histories and queer approaches to the family in eighteenth-century Ireland The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2024-02-28 Leanne Calvert
This article engages with queer and trans scholarship to produce a methodological think-piece on how to queer the Irish family. It draws on a case study of alleged crossdressing and attempted intim...
-
The Irish family, marital breakdown and the Josie Airey case, c. 1974-1981 The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2024-02-25 Deirdre Foley
Centring the role of women, particularly Josie Airey, this article outlines the activism and legal process that led to improvements in family law and the provision of civil legal aid for the first ...
-
RIFNET. A new agenda for the Irish family: messy realities & messier lives The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2024-02-25 Leanne Calvert, Maeve O’Riordan
This special issue introduces new research on historical approaches to the Irish family. The articles in this collection have grown out of the Reconstituting the Irish Family Research Network (RIFN...
-
Dogs in the picture: restoring the queer history of the Irish family The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2024-02-21 Mo Moulton
Taking the Irish pianist and music teacher Dorothy Stokes as a case study, this article explores alternative formulations of kinship in independent Ireland. It analyzes Stokes’s family life from tw...
-
What about the widows? Widowhood and households in Cape Town 1938/1939 The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2024-02-11 Amy Rommelspacher
At any given time, 16% of the world’s female population is made up of widowed women, though this figure varies by region. The loss of a spouse usually means the loss of economic and social support ...
-
Marriages of love and convenience: The French dating market and the revolution of romantic love (19th-20th century) The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2024-01-31 Claire-Lise Gaillard
Did love conquer marriage between the 19th and 20th centuries in France? Does a personal choice imply a free choice? To date, no study has had access to sources that are both numerous and sufficien...
-
Queering family history and the lives of Irish men before gay liberation The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2024-01-17 Tom Hulme
Historians of sexuality commonly ‘read against the grain’ of the criminal archive as a way to reconstruct both the pitfalls and possibilities of queer cruising cultures. One of the drawbacks of thi...
-
Living together, loving together: pet families in the 21st century The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2024-01-10 Joaquín Linne, Florencia Angilletta
This paper explores the configuration of families between humans and companion animals, focusing on the shifting domestic dynamics and the rise of pet families in urban milieus. These configuration...
-
‘Glad to the heart to see any of my brothers’: exploring Irish family life through sibling relationships The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2024-01-07 Shannon Devlin
This article proposes using the sibling relationship as an historical lens into nineteenth-century Ireland. Often taken for granted in historiography, brothers and sisters influenced family financi...
-
Hurricanes, fertility, and family structure: a study of early 20th century Jamaica The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2023-12-08 Robert J R Elliott, Eric A Strobl, Thomas Tveit
This study investigates the impact of hurricanes on fertility and the role of family structure in early 20th century Jamaica. Importantly, this was a time period in which there were no storm warnin...
-
Children as pawns on the national Chess board: children in Israel’s 1948 war of Independence The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2023-12-08 Lilach Rosenberg-Friedman
The article examines how nationalism shapes perceptions of childhood and defines the role of children in a national struggle, and the challenges of implementing these perceptions during wartime, wh...
-
Dangerous liaisons, or strategies for family management in eighteenth-century Venice The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2023-12-08 Celeste McNamara
In 1745, a lengthy and unusual case was brought before the Venetian Executors against Blasphemy, a secular court with jurisdiction over a wide range of crimes that violated standards of morality. T...
-
Did the grandmother’s exposure to environmental stress during pregnancy affect the birth body size of her grandchildren? The Polish evidence The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2023-12-08 Grażyna Liczbińska, Miroslav Králík
This study aimed to examine whether the exposure of grandmothers (G1s) pregnant with their daughters (G2s) to the harsh conditions of the First World War and the Great Depression influenced the per...
-
Personal advertising and dating culture in World War II Finland The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2023-12-04 Ilari Taskinen
I analyze how personal advertising affected marital and sexual culture in Finland during World War II. The practice of seeking intimate company through newspapers was nearly non-existent in Finland...
-
Care and crisis: disaster experiences of Australian parents since 1974 The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2023-11-17 Carla Pascoe Leahy, Catherine Gay
The historical influence of environmental factors on families has received relatively little scholarly attention. In this article we explore the impact of the ‘natural’ or ‘more-than-human’ world o...
-
Households and communities: evolution in Homo sapiens The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2023-08-07 Patrick Manning
Recent developments in the theory of social evolution give support to arguments that the overall pattern of human evolution can effectively be seen through three linked but sequential mechanisms of...
-
The gift of life after slavery: close-kin ownership, slavery and manumission in Suriname 1765-1795 The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2023-06-28 Camilla de Koning
Close-kin ownership, to own one’s kin, has been researched from the perspective of emancipatory strategies or economic exploitation, hereby overlooking the complexity of kinship bonds in slave soci...
-
Models of leaving home: patterns and trends in Sweden, 1830–1959 The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2023-06-20 Samuel Sundvall, Christer Lundh, Martin Dribe, Glenn Sandström
ABSTRACT In this study, we examine the development of age at leaving the parental household in Sweden between the years 1830-1959. We utilize individual-level longitudinal data from two geographically and socioeconomically different regions: the county of Scania in the very south of Sweden, and Västerbotten to the north. We use descriptive and multivariate analyses to investigate how determinants,
-
The Russian peasant family in the twentieth century: a structural-typological and dynamic analysis The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2023-06-18 L. N. Mazur, O. V. Gorbachev
ABSTRACT The study discusses the transformation of the peasant family in Russia in the twentieth century and focuses on the materials of the budget surveys of peasant households in the Middle Urals in 1928/1929 and in 1963. The population censuses of 1926, 1939, and 1959 allow us to compare the family structure in rural areas of the Urals diachronically and to chart the evolution of the Russian peasant
-
Standing on the shoulders of giants. Paternal life course effects on son’s heights outcomes in the Netherlands 1820-1960 The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2023-05-15 Björn Quanjer
ABSTRACT This article aims to answer the question: what makes you taller than your father? To study this intergenerational growth, conscription heights from the Historical Sample of the Netherlands are used from the period 1820–1960. A growth estimation method on the individual level is introduced to cope with the variance in growth windows in the nineteenth century, especially to estimate growth after
-
Casting shadows: later-life outcomes of stature The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2023-05-15 Jan Kok, Björn Quanjer, Kristina Thompson
ABSTRACT The central question in this special issue is a relatively new one in anthropometric history: how did body height affect the life course? This raises the issue of whether such an effect merely captures the underlying early-life conditions that impact growth, or whether some independent effect of stature can be discerned. Further, the effects of height on later-life outcomes need not be linear
-
Simulating the evolution of height in the Netherlands in recent history The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2023-03-23 Gert Stulp, Tyler Bonnell, Louise Barrett
ABSTRACT The Dutch have a remarkable history when it comes to height. From being one of the shortest European populations in the 19th Century, the Dutch grew some 20 cm and are currently the tallest population in the world. Wealth, hygiene, and diet are well-established contributors to this major increase in height. Some have suggested that natural selection may also contribute to the trend, but evidence
-
The US baby boom and the 1935 Social Security Act The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2023-03-06 Gregori Galofré-Vilà
ABSTRACT In 1935, the United States passed Social Security Act (SSA) providing financial security to American families. I use the individual census data for 1940 and 1960 to show that women from states that allowed for more social spending under the SSA had substantially more children than women from states that allowed for lower social benefits. I also use a new panel of state-level fertility by parity
-
Family and labour in an Angolan cash-crop economy, 1910 The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2023-02-25 Jelmer Vos
This paper examines the composition of families in the parish of São José de Encoge, northern Angola, in the early colonial era, using a series of ‘family bulletins’ collected by the Portuguese col...
-
The social care-taking of the city-kids. Determinants for day-care attendance in early twentieth-century southern Sweden The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2023-01-09 Annika Elwert, Luciana Quaranta
ABSTRACT The introduction of a child day-care system is one of the early welfare interventions targeted towards mothers and young children that over time gained great prominence in the Swedish welfare state. Because quantitative research on day-cares in historical settings is generally scarce, in this study, we focus on the determinants of day-care enrolment in southern Sweden during the early twentieth
-
Breaking secular endogamy. The growth of intermarriage among the Gitanos/Calé of Spain (1900–2006) The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2023-01-02 Juan F. Gamella, Arturo Álvarez-Roldán
ABSTRACT For over five centuries the Gitanos/Calé of Spain have shown a marked preference for marrying within their ethnocultural community. In the last decades, however, various Gitano groups have experienced a rise in intermarriage that is transforming their families, their identities and their interactions with mainstream society. This paper analyzes this historical transformation in an area of
-
Historical trends in female nuptiality in Italy and analysis of possible underlying reasons The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2023-01-01 Jesús Sánchez-Barricarte, Roberta Pace
ABSTRACT Using a database of sociodemographic and economic variables for 16 Italian regions over a long period of time (from the late 19th century to the end of the 20th century), we analyze the historical evolution of female nuptiality. An econometric analysis (Panel Corrected Standard Errors) for the period 1900–1991 helps us to confirm the relationship established in some theories on marriage rates
-
Adolescent growth and convict transportation to nineteenth-century Australia The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2022-11-15 Terence Donald, Kris Inwood, Hamish Maxwell-Stewart
ABSTRACT This paper explores growth patterns for British and Irish adolescents transported to Australia in the 19th century. During incarceration in Australia, the young convicts did not catch up with contemporary standards of potential stature—contrary to what we are led to expect by the existing literature and the high calorie convict diet. Rather, the experience of transportation stunted the adolescent
-
‘Missing girls’ in historical Europe: reopening the debate The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2022-11-05 Francisco J. Beltrán Tapia, Mikołaj Szołtysek
ABSTRACT Recent research argues that discriminatory practices unduly inflated female excess mortality during infancy and childhood in historical Europe. This article reviews the existing evidence by (1) evaluating the sources that can be used to study this phenomenon; (2) providing a state-of-the-art account of the prevalence of these discriminatory practices, as well as the factors that explain them;
-
Birth order, sibling size and educational attainment in twentieth century Spain The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2022-10-25 Miguel Requena
ABSTRACT This research presents new evidence on the negative associations of the number of siblings and birth order with years of schooling among female and male Spanish cohorts born in the first six decades of the twentieth century. Special attention is given to unravelling the separate effects of both factors, sib size and birth order. Based on data from the 1991 Spanish Sociodemographic Survey (SDS)
-
Nutritional status and adult mortality in a mid-20th century Gambian population: do different types of physical ‘capital’ have different associations with mortality? The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2022-10-04 Rebecca Sear, Andrew M. Prentice, Jonathan Wells
ABSTRACT Measures of nutritional status are often used as markers of health, at both individual- and population-level. Different measures of nutritional status – such as height or weight, for example, – may have different associations with health outcomes because they reflect both current nutritional status and the accumulation of past health experiences, but the weighting of past and present experiences
-
Public unemployment relief and health during the great depression The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2022-09-18 Gregori Galofré Vilà
ABSTRACT This paper uses newly collected data on county-level unemployment relief recipiency in 1933 with an OLS with fixed effects and a cross-sectional border-county research design, to examine the correlation between Depression-era public assistance and contemporaneous mortality. The paper finds that in counties where the government tended to support more unemployed families, mortality was lower
-
What can Europe’s history of gender bias tell us about Asia’s contemporary experience? The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2022-09-15 Christophe Z Guilmoto
ABSTRACT Discrimination towards females – a trait of regional demography so far deemed unique to Asian countries – has inspired historians to revisit demographic series to look for instances of gender imbalances within Europe. In this paper, we show why a proper appreciation of Europe’s experience of gender discrimination in the past may help us to understand the future of contemporary sex selection
-
Infant and child sex ratios in late Imperial Russia The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2022-08-18 Viktor Malein, Francisco J. Beltrán Tapia
ABSTRACT This article analyses infant and child sex ratios in late Imperial Russia relying on district-level information obtained from the 1897 Russian census (489 districts). The article shows that child sex ratios were, on average, relatively low (around 98 boys per hundred girls) due to the biological female advantage: the extremely high infant and child mortality rates took a greater toll on boys
-
The invisibility of Portuguese stepfamilies: the relationships between stepparents, stepchildren and half-siblings in eighteenth– and nineteenth–century Porto The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2022-08-07 Ana Mafalda Lopes
ABSTRACT Stepfamily relationships in eighteenth – and nineteenth-century Portugal are often invisible because of the mobility of the population. Widows and widowers did not hesitate to remarry and create blended households of first and second marriage beds even though this option was criticized by Catholic clergy and targeted by legislation penalizing widows. Portuguese legislation was harsh on stepfathers
-
Health and lifespan of Swiss men born in an alpine region in 1905–1907 The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2022-07-25 Ella Ziegler, Erik Postma, Katarina L. Matthes, Joël Floris, Kaspar Staub
ABSTRACT Body height and body mass index (BMI) are associated with later life outcomes in present and historical populations. We examine the case study of the Swiss Alpine canton of Glarus, which was highly industrialised at the beginning of the 20th century. Our study links conscription registers to genealogical registers at the individual level in Switzerland for the first time. We analyse whether
-
Remarriage and Stepfamilies in the ‘Western Islands’ of Europe: the rural Azores of Portugal in the 18th and 19th centuries The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2022-07-21 P. T. de Matos, Diogo Paiva
ABSTRACT This article uses parish registers, libri status animarum, and notarial records from the 18th and 19th centuries to assess the extent to which the rates of remarriage of widows and widowers in the Azores were similar to those of mainland Portugal. We consider that, despite the clear obstacles to marriage on the islands (due especially to male emigration) remarriage was in fact frequent and
-
Stepfamilies across Europe and overseas, 1550–1900 The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2022-07-18 Lyndan Warner, Gabriella Erdélyi
ABSTRACT This special issue investigates the families arising from death and the remarriage of a parent to consider the outcomes for the children, parents and stepparents from 1550 to 1900. It investigates historical demography to establish the numbers and types of stepfamilies. The introduction sketches several themes such as: the lingering effects of parental loss; how remarriage shapes stepfamily
-
Transitory inequalities: how individual-level cause-specific death data can unravel socioeconomic inequalities in infant mortality in Maastricht, the Netherlands, 1864–1955 The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2022-06-15 Mayra Murkens, Ben Pelzer, Angélique Janssens
ABSTRACT The decline in infant mortality played a crucial role in the health transition in the Western World. This decline among the vulnerable new-borns was however not an evenly dispersed process. Inequalities as a result of regional differences, cultural influences or socioeconomic status shaped the paths towards low mortality rates. The role of socioeconomic status in levels of infant mortality
-
Gendered mortality of children and adolescents in nineteenth-century Denmark. Exploring patterns of sex ratios and mortality rates The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2022-06-10 Mads L. Perner, A. K. Mortensen, H. Castenbrandt, A. Løkke, B. A. Revuelta-Eugercios
ABSTRACT The relationship between gender and mortality in nineteenth-century Europe has been highly debated. In particular, historians disagree about the manner and degree to which gender discrimination affected the mortality risk of the female population. This article contributes by examining the evidence of gendered mortality differences among children and adolescents in nineteenth-century Denmark
-
Indirect pathways of multigenerational persistence: the role of uncles and assortative mating in the Netherlands, 1857-1922 The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2022-06-08 Kim Stienstra, Antonie Knigge
ABSTRACT Recent research into intergenerational social mobility has examined the association between the socioeconomic position of grandparents (G1) and their grandchildren (G3), but it remains unclear why G1-G3 associations arise. Prevailing explanations focus on whether grandparents have a true direct influence on their grandchildren or an indirect one via omitted parental characteristics. We argue
-
Years of plenty, years of want? An introduction to finance and the family life cycle The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2022-05-24 Christiaan van Bochove, Jaco Zuijderduijn
ABSTRACT Research suggests that until recently families in history could only avoid episodes of poverty if they put money aside. By helping to smooth consumption over the family life cycle, finance could prevent impoverishment, and is also likely to have had an effect on family life. Saving may have influenced cohabitation structures and the timing and incidence of birth, marriage, and death. That
-
Height, occupation, and intergenerational mobility: an instrumental variable analysis of Dutch men, birth years 1850-1900 The History of the Family (IF 1.0) Pub Date : 2022-05-19 Kristina Thompson, France Portrait
ABSTRACT Height and labor market outcomes appear to be related to one another. The taller people are, the more likely they are to have better jobs and to earn more money. This is especially the case for men. However, whether height is causally related to labor market outcomes is an open question, which instrumental variable (IV) analysis may help to answer. To our knowledge, no study has yet used IV