Prudence as Obstinate Resistance to Pressure: Marriage in Nineteenth-Century Rural Eastern Belgium

The nineteenth century challenged the adaptive capacities of rural population in eastern Belgium. Families succeeded in maintaining local cultures and ways of life by imposing strict controls on marriage, a traditional response that intensified during the century. This chapter considers family control and escape from that control among the unmarried aged 18–44 in two rural communities. We focus on the effects of household composition and local contexts on their uneasy transition to adulthood, considering also partner choice and premarital sexuality in a social and demographic system under pres... Mehr ...