The Changing Family

Kioko Rodriguez

Kendra Friesen

Rachel Despain

Rebecca Torres

Sarai

Premarital sex and marriage

• By 1850, pre-industrial pattern of courtship and marriage was dead

• Marriage-a family’s most crucial financial transaction– More important to mid-class after 1850

• Marriage contracts remained a common practice

Differences• Differences between husband and wife

built tension in many mid-class marriages

• Young women’s virginity was watched by their mother like family credit

• By adolescence, mid-class boys usually attained considerable sexual experiences with a maid or prostitute

Illegitimacy• Illegitimacy explosion between 1750 &

1850• Poverty and economic uncertainty often

prevented marriage, many saw litter wrong with having illegitimate offsprings

• Pattern of romantic ideals, premarital sexual activity, and widespread illegitimacy was firmly established by mid-class urban working classes

Prostitution• Between 1871-1903, 155,000 women were

registered as prostitutes in Paris alone!– Over 750,000 others were accused/suspected

of prostitution• All classes visited prostitutes but mainly

mid/upper class supplied most of the motivating money

• An anonymous author wrote My Secret Life-an eleven-volume autobiography of devoting his life to his sexual fantasies

• Prostitution was also a back up plan for paying expenses that weren’t payable by a regular job

Kinship Ties• Kinship ties were ties to relatives after

marriage• Were popular after marriage in the late

19th c. and became the most important tie than other acquaintances

• Newlyweds and other couples went to their families for, help and even financial aid

• Many families lived close to their relatives

Gender Roles and Family Life

• Industrialization brought great changes to European women– Consequential for married women

• Husbands became wage earners in factories• Factory employment declined for women• As economic conditions improved, most men expected

married women to work outside the home– There was a strict division of labor by gender

constructed separate spheres• the wife as a mother and homemaker, the husband

as a wage earner• Meant that married women faced great injustice

Gender roles and Family Life cont.

• The Napoleonic code gave women few legal rights• Women had rebelled against them in which the were

feminists• Middle class feminists campaigned for equal legal rights• Home and childeren became wifes main concerns• Wives controlled the money• Gustave Droz

– Belived that love and marriage was the key to happines– Condemed men who made marriage sound dull and

practical– Urged women to follow their hearts and marry a man

near their age

Child Rearing• Mothers were attached to their babies

– started to breast feed them• Fewer illegitimate babies were abandoned• Women limited the children they had so they

could treat their other kids equally– Birth rate declining

• Parents became too concerned with children that they felt trapped– Concerned with sexual behavior

Child Rearing cont.• Mother and child relationship was full of love• Father and child relationship was very difficult

– Sometimes felt like a stranger• Sigmund Freud

– Founder of psychoanalysis– Believed human behavior was motivated by

emotional needs• Children bargained with parents

– If unsuccessful then they moved out