Abstract
It is well known that timing and intensity of remarriage were strictly dependent upon demographic, socio-economic, cultural and legislative factors specific to each community. Thus, the aim of this paper is to compare the extent to which such factors may affect the remarriage patterns of three pre-transitional Italian populations that were different in many respects. By using micro-level data of the sharecropping communities of Casalguidi and Madregolo and the Alpine village of Treppo Carnico, we highlighted similarities and differences in the respective remarriage patterns, in particular, the far lower intensity in the mountain community with respect to the sharecropping ones. Our findings show that along with differences in the demographic system, household structure and land tenure, normative elements concerning widows and the dotal system could in part explain the differentials we found.
Résumé
Il est bien connu que le calendrier et l’intensité des remariages dépendent de façon stricte des facteurs démographiques, socio-économiques, culturels et législatifs spécifiques à chaque communauté. Dans cette perspective, l’objectif de cette étude est d’apprécier le rôle de ces facteurs dans les modalités de remariage de trois populations très différentes de l’Italie d’avant la transition. En utilisant des données à l’échelle micro en provenance des communautés de métayers de Casaguildi et Madregolo et du village Alpin de Treppo Carnico, nous avons mis en évidence des similarités et des différences dans les modalités des remariages, et en particulier une intensité bien moindre du phénomène dans la communauté montagnarde que dans les communautés de métayers. Nos résultats indiquent que, en parallèle aux différences en matière de système démographique, de structure des ménages et de régime de propriété foncière, des éléments normatifs concernant le veuvage et le système de dot pourraient expliquer une partie des différences observées.
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Notes
Matthijs (2003) proposed a theoretical framework similar to Livi Bacci’s interpretation of the lower propensity to remarriage of rural populations with respect to urban ones. In the 19th century Flemish countryside, households were larger and more complex than those living in the cities, and this fact reduced the pressure to remarry.
We use the term patrilocal, uxorilocal and neolocal to indicate the form of living arrangement after marriage. Patrilocal refers to couples living in the husband’s parental household, uxorilocal to couples living in the wife’s parental household, and finally neolocal refers to couples forming a new family independent from respective parental households.
In this paper, we have adopted a simplified Laslett’s categorization of household structure involving the typologies of nuclear, complex, solitary and no-structure households. The first group refers to households formed by only one biological unit (parent(s)+children), the second one by households with only one biological unit plus some relatives (extended) and households with two or more biological units, the third one by individuals living alone, and the last one by those households without any biological unit (for instance, households formed by siblings only).
The linkage technique is described in Manfredini 1996.
The acts supply information on the wedding date, name and surname of spouses and parents, as well as current spouses’ place of residence. In Casalguidi, the marriage registers also provide information on the spouses’ marital status at the moment of marriage, data that is absent, on the other hand, in the parish acts of Madregolo.
Although family reconstitution can incorporate census data, such information is not frequently used in family reconstitution studies for Italy. For details, see Manfredini (1996).
This possibility depends on the quality of recordings. In Italy, marital status is also recorded in the most ancient parish registers, although in an indirect form (name and surname of the previous spouse). However, one should be cautious in the use of such information since it was more likely to be recorded for women than for men.
The influence of different marriage patterns and differential mortality selection by age and gender has been analysed in a paper presented at the 2007 PAA Annual Meeting (Breschi et al. 2007a).
This factor has been seldom investigated as a time-dependent variable, liable to change as a result of departures, emigration, and deaths of some or all the children.
The “duration unknown” category includes most of the long-time widow/widowers: it includes all those persons who were widowed from the beginning of observation and whose spouse's date of death is missing.
In this region, the wife could always dispose of all goods and properties that the husband had registered to her, and as a widow she could inherit from the oldest son. Normally, the will included a clause of widowhood in order to inherit, but in the territory of the Austrian Empire, this norm had value only if the widow had children (Pincherli 1901, p. 187). In theory, the widow and her heirs could also dispose of the dowry.
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Breschi, M., Fornasin, A., Manfredini, M. et al. Family Composition and Remarriage in Pre-Transitional Italy: A Comparative Study. Eur J Population 25, 277–296 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10680-008-9172-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10680-008-9172-8