enlace - History Lab

Marriage contract of Antonio María de Munibe Aréizaga and Josefa Joaquina de Aranguren Álava

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:32:58 +0000

The social behaviour of the Basque families most closely linked to the Court and to the political, economic and cultural activities of the Age of Enlightenment followed very marked patterns. In this sense, the marriage policy of these families was determined by the linking of their members with each other, as the case of the Munibe-Aranguren-Álava families demonstrates. These three families were closely linked to the Real Sociedad Bascongada de los Amigos del País and the projects derived from it. In this context, the three families became linked by marriage, thus consolidating their relationships and family strategies.

1935a4be3e690a64487ac7a53cea907f1 Download

The post Marriage contract of Antonio María de Munibe Aréizaga and Josefa Joaquina de Aranguren Álava first appeared on History Lab.

Proportions of Unmarried Women by Age and Date, 1787

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:29:48 +0000

Nuptiality is a demographic variable of great importance that has often been neglected in favour of the study of mortality or fertility. Its significance as a reproductive institution obtains a relevant meaning where fertility control within marriage is null or moderate. In this sense, it is necessary to specify how marriage is one of the most determining vital acts in the social sphere. In traditional societies, marriage practice was mediated by access to land, inheritance or some other significant form of livelihood. Looking at marital engagement behaviour, it is very similar between rural and urban areas at younger ages; at older ages, urban areas show important differences in the proportion of unmarried women. However, the mean age at marriage in 1787 is substantially the same in rural and urban areas, slightly higher for urban males (25.6 vs. 25.1) and slightly lower for urban females (23.2 vs. 23.8)

The post Proportions of Unmarried Women by Age and Date, 1787 first appeared on History Lab.

Professions of the husbands and fathers of the brides of Lower Extremadura (17th century)

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:29:07 +0000

The wife brought to the marriage, either by herself or other persons on her behalf, a series of assets from the paternal surplus, which constituted the anticipation of a legitimate inheritance received at the time of the constitution of a new family. It was the husband who received the assets and, on the other hand, became the administrator of them with the obligation to return them to the heirs or the wife herself in the event of divorce or death of the husband. These goods delivered could appear with the estimate of the prices -estimated price- or without it, indicating only the description of the goods. As for the male professions, labourers are owners of land and livestock in large quantities, while cangueros are small taxpayers with little land and a few animals. Day labourers did not own agricultural real estate and worked for wages. The artisans, on the other hand, have all the distributions made during the 17th century as small taxpayers satisfying local needs. On the other hand, the graduates are those people in the service sector who needed certain studies in order to exercise their profession. 72% of marriages took place between families with the same qualifications, and this was more pronounced among farmers (84%). Along with wealth, there were two hierarchies of power: the possession of council posts and cleanliness of blood. Honour, power and wealth go hand in hand, as all the mayors and councillors who appear in the letters of dowry fall into the category of peasants, as do those who declare their nobility.

The post Professions of the husbands and fathers of the brides of Lower Extremadura (17th century) first appeared on History Lab.

Average prices of estimated dowries in Lower Extremadura (constant reales de vellón (base 1000 = average 1601-1625))

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:29:07 +0000

The wife brought to the marriage, either by herself or others on her behalf, a series of assets from the paternal surplus, which constituted the anticipation of a legitimate share received at the time of the creation of a new family. The husband, on the other hand, became the administrator of assets with the obligation to return them to the heirs or the wife herself in the event of divorce. These assets delivered could appear with the estimated price – estimated dowry – or without it, indicating only the description of the assets. As for the estimated dowries, the fluctuations in prices during the century must be taken into account. Therefore, the largest dowries correspond to the deeds involving farmers and graduates; at an intermediate level, although at a considerable distance, are the dowries of cangueros, and the lowest are those of labourers, artisans and service personnel. The goods that appear in them are valued by people who deserve the confidence of the families who subscribe them, as well as citing circumstances for this task, such as the profession (carpenters to evaluate furniture, labourers for the land…). In this sense, the prices granted were not far from the real values, as it must be taken into account that the estimated dowry had the effect of selling the goods to the husband. The overall value, therefore, depended on current circumstances such as the position of the bride among her brothers, the situation of the family at the time of the dowry or the economic level of the groom’s family.

The post Average prices of estimated dowries in Lower Extremadura (constant reales de vellón (base 1000 = average 1601-1625)) first appeared on History Lab.

Gross marriage rates in Santo Domingo de la Frontera (Baja California), 1780-1808

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:28:52 +0000

After the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767, the religious missions they had founded in Baja California were placed in the hands of the Franciscans the following year, who faced new circumstances – internal and external. The Dominicans, however, reached the California peninsula in October 1772, but it was not until May 1773 that the transfer of the missions established under the supervision of the Franciscan Fray Francisco Palou and the Dominican Fray Vicente de Mora took place. The high number of marriages in 1778 indicates the first approach of the missionaries to their pastoral flock, consecrating the profane relationships that individuals had before the arrival of the religious and military. After 1807, fourteen marriages were recorded in the mission, although a respective decline began, which reinforces the idea that around 1810 a process of depopulation began, paralleling the decline in the number of baptisms.

The post Gross marriage rates in Santo Domingo de la Frontera (Baja California), 1780-1808 first appeared on History Lab.

Ethnic endogamy in the parish of San Antonio de Toacazo, Ecuador (18th-19th centuries)

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:28:46 +0000

In the northern Andes, the introduction of the Catholic marriage ritual defined guidelines for controlling the life cycle of the indigenous population, influencing the biological reproduction of the group. During colonial times, two stages must be distinguished, comprising the encounter and collision of the 17th century and the second, which involved the stabilisation of the colonial order based on the European-Catholic family model. The clash between the two worlds and their different practices unleashed spaces of mixture in which no one clearly followed a single practice or norm. Therefore, different social and ethnic groups articulated different forms of families in different spaces and at different times. The ups and downs of nuptiality throughout the seventeenth century expressed the difficulty of imposing a specific ritual for which one had to pay. Thus, getting married according to ecclesiastical canons implied submission to the colonial powers by imposing a practice configured from another order. After the achievement of Independence, the practices ordered by the costly Church-Republican State pact to “change everything without changing anything” in matters such as the management of spaces in people’s private lives increased. Throughout the 18th century, the settlers of Toacazo maintained almost impassable ethnic distances. The main human contingent – the indigenous men and women who accounted for 85% of the population in the 1778 census – related, following their customary tradition, only among themselves, both through the distribution of resources and community spaces and through the networks of compadrazgo that protected them and guaranteed their survival as a group. Of the total number of separate marriages in the two centuries, 89.2% and 83.8% took place between indigenous people, just as the vast majority of Spaniards and mestizos did the same. White women residing in the community, who accounted for 2% of the total in the 18th century and 9% in the 19th century, married their peers.

The post Ethnic endogamy in the parish of San Antonio de Toacazo, Ecuador (18th-19th centuries) first appeared on History Lab.