Statistics and Comparisons

The Changing Life of the People

Chapter 20

Marriage and IllegitimacyPre-1750 Post-1750

• Average age of marriage 27 in English village, 25 for women and 27 for men in France

• 1 to 2% of births illegitimate, but 20 to 30 percent of women pregnant at the time of marriage

• Marriage at an earlier age (no specific statistics cited)

• 20 to 30% of births illegitimate, rates higher in cities than in rural areas

• Peer pressure to marry after conceiving to limit illegitimacy and encourage marriage

• Embarrassment people into conforming to community standards– Riding stang (ex. wife who bossed her husband

around, person who stole from a community garden)

– Throwing vegetables at a house (craftsman accused of shoddy workmanship)

– Insulting midnight serenades a.k.a. charivari (public official accused of corruption)

Infant Mortality

• Less women nursing their own children – so children not getting mother’s immunities and women quickly having more children

• Foundling hospitals created to take unwanted children– 100,000 foundlings in Europe admitted annually– 20-30% of Parisian children abandoned (one third of those

by married couples)– St. Petersburg had a foundling hospital housing 25,000

children– 50% of children in foundling hospitals died in one year,

90% died before adulthood

Attitudes about Children

Common Practices• Less emotional

attachment, perhaps because of high mortality rate

• Children wet nursed • Children seen as little

adults, with the capacity to act like adults

• Children punished often• Many children abandoned

to foundling homes

Enlightenment figures • Urged emotional

attachment• Advocated maternal

nursing• Allowing children to dress

and behave naturally• Increased funding to

foundling homes – popular charity for middle class women

Literacy1600 1800

• 1 in 6 literate in Scotland and France

• 1 in 4 literate in England

• 90% Scottish males literate

• 66% French males literate

• 50% English males literate

Prussia was the first to make grammar school compulsory (Under Frederick William I) but there was not enough money to fund the program effectively

EntertainmentRich Lower Class

• Salons

• Fairs• Spectator Sports (boxing, horseracing)

• Carnival

• Female gatherings to talk, sing & sew

• Male gatherings at the tavern

• Fairs• Spectator Sports

(boxing, horseracing)• Bloodsports

• Carnival

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Ri

Diet• Poor – roughly ground wheat/rye bread, peas,

beans, vegetables in season, fruit in the summer months as the 18th century progressed this grew to include corn, squash, tomatoes, and potatoes

• Urban artisans – variety of meats, vegetables and fruits with bread and beans still forming the bulk of the diet

• Rich – “rapacious carnivores” with rich meat and fish dishes with sauces, sweets, cheeses, nuts and an enormous amount of overdrinking

Consumer Society

• More people gaining enough disposable income to buy “stuff”

• Upper classes become the trendsetters, everyone else tries to copy

• Centered in NW European cities