Prudence as Obstinate Resistance to Pressure
Prudence as Obstinate Resistance to Pressure
Marriage in Nineteenth-Century Rural Eastern Belgium
The nineteenth century challenged the adaptive capacities of rural population in eastern Belgium. Families succeeded in maintaining local cultures and ways of life by imposing strict controls on marriage, a traditional response that intensified during the century. This chapter considers family control and escape from that control among the unmarried aged 18–44 in two rural communities. We focus on the effects of household composition and local contexts on their uneasy transition to adulthood, considering also partner choice and premarital sexuality in a social and demographic system under pressure. Even more than others, farming families avoided marrying during periods forbidden by the Catholic Church, their intervals between marriage and first birth were longer, illegitimate births were rarer and their expectations about marriage were higher.
Keywords: Marriage, rural families, partner choice, sexuality, Belgium, migration
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