Family and Marriage in the Mid-Eighteenth Century

Abstract

The combined population of England and Wales probably amounted to about 6¹/₄ million in the mid-eighteenth century (Porter, 1982, p. 21). The two countries comprised a patchwork of local communities, each with its own traditions and heritages. Although increasingly feeling the pressure of change, it remained still a ‘face-to-face’ society of overwhelmingly rural character. The rural population constituted about 70 per cent of England’s population (Malcolmson, 1981, p. 56). For the most part, towns were merely overgrown villages. Migration from country to town was increasing but most migrants had come less than twenty miles and many had come less than ten (Butlin, 1982, p. 28). In terms of occupation distribution, approximately 80 per cent of the population were labouring men and women and of the remaining 20 per cent probably less than 5 per cent could be called the governing class. Industry was not yet concentrated; production of textiles and the conversion of bar-iron and steel into light usable goods was still carried on, for the most part, in the homes of the workers (Briggs and Jordan, 1954, p. 182). In short, the Industrial Revolution (insofar as it is correct to call it that) had not yet happened.