Economic reproduction of bourgeois families in León, 18th-19th centuries

One of the most effective reproduction strategies of social groups was marriage. A good marriage could mean consolidation within a group, or promotion. The bourgeois families of the city of León were no strangers to the reality of their time. The resource shows the different average contribution of the spouses according to the sector to which they belonged within the bourgeoisie: commercial, financial, administrative or liberal professions. Overall, the average contribution of the spouses exceeded 200,000 reals, reaching 1,462,001 in the case of the financiers. The spouses brought most of their assets to the marriage, except in the case of liberal professionals. These well-matched couples saw their wealth increase not only with the marriage itself, but also with the commercial performance of their businesses. In fact, contributions to the marriage represented an average of 25.8% of their total wealth. Did second marriages follow the same trends? In this case, imbalances were observed in favour of the husband (if the wife was a widow or younger than the husband) or the wife (if the widow had younger children and owned a business).

Collection: Statistics

Project: 2. Social and economic impact of technological revolutions in Europe., 3. Rural world and urban world in the formation of the European identity., 4. Family, daily life and social inequality in Europe.

Chronology: XVIII, XIX

Scope: Secondary Education, Baccalaureate, University

Link: https://revistas.usal.es/index.php/Studia_Historica/article/view/9108/9346

Resource type: Statistics

Format: Table

Source: Bartolomé Bartolomé, J. M. y García Fernández, M. (2011). "Patrimonios urbanos, patrimonios burgueses. Herencias tangibles y transmisiones inmateriales en la Castilla interior", en Studia Historica, vol. 33, p. 49.

Language: Spanish

Date: 2011

Owner: Pablo Ballesta Fernández (Modernalia)

Abstract: Resource that shows the economic contribution of the bride and groom to marriage as a technique of social and material reproduction of the León bourgeoisie in the 18th century and first half of the 19th century

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