Volume VIII, Issue 1, 2014
Abstract
Historically, Portugal accounts high levels of illegitimacy both on the European context, as well in the Iberian panorama. On the one hand, the abandonment of children, institutionalized by the foundling wheels, seems to have largely boosted the phenomenon. On the other hand, marital restrictions, such as the high age at marriage, permanent celibacy, male migration and property transmission systems, led to a significant impact on this variable. The purpose of this exploratory article is to offer an overview of the complex phenomenon of birth outside of marriage in Portugal during the 19th Century. The authors highlight the difficulties in the study of illegitimacy starting by discussing the various available sources, literature and methodological questions involved in this analysis. In a second phase a first overview will be presented still fragmentary and exploratory-about the evolution of the ratio in a national and regional level, and its possible relationship with other demographic variables.
Keywords
Illegitimacy, Portugal, 19th Century, abandoned children, foundling wheels, marriage restrictions
Abstract
In France, women were always active parties in devolution of belongings and values from one generation to the following. Securing the right of women to inherit their parents assets is indeed one of the essential characteristics of European societies. Whatever the priority given to one of the line of descents (often but not always the male line), some share of the parents assets was always transmitted through women. In Ancien Regime France, the part of women in transmission or devolution of assets was not homogeneous. Differences were striking from one region to another. In spite of the important legislative changes brought about by the Code Civil des Français (1804) customary practices survived in Northern as in Southern France and adapted to new social and economic conditions and mentalities that were not always against female interests. The Napoleonic Code allowed spouses organizing their patrimonial relations as they so fit, as soon as a minimum of common rules were respected. It was adopted in many European countries (including Romania) and is still in use with minimum changes by various nations. This essay traces the impact of the 1789 Revolution and following legal reforms concerning matrimonial conventions, inheritance systems and widows economic means of subsistence in old age.
Keywords
Property, Inheritance, Gender, Civil Code, Customs, France, Marriage, Widowhood, Survival, Roman Law.
Abstract
Situated at the margins of society by their origin and status, the Gypsies had always represented a paradox as they send forth both attraction and rejection; sentiments that can be seen and traced not only with a foreigner’s attitude, but also with the one of a Romanian. Until the first half of 19th Century, the society gave them a place in the social hierarchy as serfs (princely serfs, boyar serfs and monastery serfs), hardly ever discussing the possibility of a change. But things emerged in a different direction and laws for their emancipation and the improvement of their life conditions started to be on governments’ agenda until they became a reality. We intend to follow in our study two main issues in order to re-create their image and childhood. First of all, what was their social status and how this status changed over time? Many of these children were serfs as their fathers and fallowed their families whenever they moved to one place to another. Still, one of their parents was a free person from juridical point of view; they and their parents wanted to expand this situation over them. So, how the family (parents and relatives) and the others (neighbours, authorities etc.) constructed their discourse around the child in order to achieve this goal? Secondly, we intend to see what were the alternatives the society gave them so that they could succeed in life? For, we must not forget they were treated differently both by Gypsies and Romanians alike and only the State and the Church could intervene to determine a change in mentality.
Keywords
childhood history, 19th Century, Romanian society, Gypsies, mixed families.
Abstract
The present research paper is a demographic analysis of the Romanian household from Transylvania’s past in the period of time between the second half of the 19th Century and the first quarter of the 20th Century. The case study that envisaged the Greek-Catholic community in Poiana Ilvei was based on the records found in the Status Animarum (lists of souls) dating from 1864, 1892 and 1925. The processed information unveiled a household that was rather reduced in terms of size (4-5 members), as well a gradual increase in the number of simple households. The data also revealed several other changes regarding the relationship between marriage and the establishment of an autonomous household from one record to another. Furthermore, the analysis of the individuals life cycle revealed that the household became more simplified and nuclear.
Keywords
household size and structure, household establishment, life cycle, Transylvania.
Abstract
This work presents the strategies of transnational motherhood that migrant mothers from Romania employ in relation with their children. These women need to confront a defamatory discourse that accuses them of abandoning their children, at the macro level (society), but also at the meso level (community) and the micro one (family). Through the transfer of care, educational support, redefinition of motherhood and transnational relationships, these women succeed in fulfilling their role as mothers. The work proposes two theoretical models for understanding the exercise of transnational motherhood: the model of care in transnational motherhood and the model of functioning of transnational motherhood, through emphasizing the need for displaying transnational families. From a methodological viewpoint, this work is a feminist qualitative research, at which 37 subjects have participated (transnational family members and key persons) from six rural transnational communities.
Keywords
Transnational motherhood, transfer of care, transnational caregiving, defamation of migrant mothers, transnational communication, empowerment of women