LECTURE 6: STAYING ALIVE Flashcards
What was life like?
Average life expectancy 30-35 but a lower life expectancy for women as child birth was a risk.
Were orphans common?
Yes.
But there was security in place. The instability of the family unity created a rise in the number of orphans. But there was a dense network of social insurance which relied on relatives. Kinship extended family ties especially in the rural areas as did marriage. Patronage was common and they were divided into social order, inferior and superior.
What were ties of obligation subject to?
Negotiation and they were also governed by community norms. In urban areas there were charitable institutions, apprenticeships, domestic services.
What were social relations characterised by?
Negotiation and tension.
Rural life – public social relations were subject to comment/scrutiny. There was a string sense of community that obliged people to carry out the terms of relationship.
Urban – there were community relations in parish life and there a weaker form of ties. There were alterative networks through confraternities, guilds and other associations (charitable groups).
Surrogate parents – orphanages (privately funded), employment (work in organisation with government, expected to live with master, girls domestic service, boys servant/ apprenticeship).
How were family units unstable?
the idea of family/ household was a flexible concept. Social capital (network between people) was the key form of insurance against the major risks. There were networks of mutual obligation and the quality of relations was subjected to the community expectation and reputation.
What was education like?
It was subject to status.
Rural: agricultural labour, Sunday schools (following church reformation).
Cities: parish schools (basic literacy), apprenticeships, placement in firms, private schools, higher education (church, medicine and law).
Define cultural capital?
Refers to non-financial social assets that promote social mobility beyond economic means. Education of cultural capital embodied practices, knowledge, material goods.
What was marriage like?
A public statement of where you stand in the social hierarchy and it was also determined by economic possessions.
It was also family strategies to network and extend kinship.
It measured the status of the family.
Marriage was a solution for illegitimate pregnancies.
Policing of sexuality and family honor elites. As there were more constraints on them, there was more freedom lower down the hierarchy.
It was also viewed as a working partnership.
What was a dowry?
It referred to material goods and money. It was an investment of class endogamy (marrying within someone’s own class). Dowry charities also prevented prostitution.
What were the patterns in north Europe?
Women marry older men, nuclear household structures, high no. of spinsters, better legal status for women (inherit estate when male dies). Women had to protect their reputation for marriage prospects.
Patterns of medieval?
Extended households, powerful male lineages, high no. of nuns, limited legal rights for women.
Rural: Early marriage for both partners
Urban: older men, younger women.
Widows: difficult position as the estate would go t the children. There were covenants to restrict number of marriages to less divide the inheritance.
Infant mortality rates?
15-13% High crisis.
Regulation of child birth?
Midwives (authorised to carry out baptism and report illegitimate births, infanticide (abortion) and abandonment.
There was moral policing and community regulations.
There were privacy issues as it was subject to gossip etc.
Attitudes to remarriage?
Widowers: men likely to remarry (especially if they have kids from previous marriage)
Young widows: reclaim a dowry from former husband estate, or abandon children (not common in north EU)
Future of widows?
Relied on status
Poverty and marginality or autonomy and power.
