Between Constraints and Coercion
Between Constraints and Coercion
Marriage and Social Reproduction in Northern and Central Italy in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries
The main theories of household and marriage systems outlined by historians and demographers are unable to account for the astonishing variety of family and marriage patterns that characterize modern Italy. This chapter proposes a new interpretative framework, which singles out the goals and mechanisms of social reproduction as the main factor constraining marital behavior and household formation in the past. This theory is tested through an analysis of first marriage in five populations in northern and central Italy, characterized by different ecological, economic, and social conditions. The results reveal that coercive factors, determined by socioeconomic status and household composition, mattered much more than Malthusian economic constraints in the timing of and access to marriage.
Keywords: Marriage, social reproduction, Italy, family formation
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