Chapter 19: Changing Lives

Chapter 19: Changing Lives

1. Late Marriage

   • Nuclear family = parents + children w/ no other relatives. 3-generation household was rare. People married at 25-27 age. 10%- 20% were never married at all. People married after they could support themselves.  Peasants waited to inherit father’s $ then start a family. Some needed approval from gov’t leaders.

2. Working Away from Home

   • Apprentices worked away from home in order to gain connections and be accepted into a guild and have economic independence. Women left home to work with seamstresses and linen drapers.  Women were soon needed and valued more in the textile industry. Girls >> service in different household.  Girls were mistreated and had many tasks.  Harassment occurred.

3. Premartial Sex and Community Controls

   • Sexually mature people had to wait. Some people had sex b4 marriage. Condoms were made of sheep intestines.  20% of children were conceived before marriage and only 2% were from wedlock.  Community controls = pattern of action to uphold stability of community. People publicly showed their anger at couples.

4. Illegitimacy

   • People could choose their spouse bc they had their own wages and didn’t work with their families. Illegitimacy Explosion >> increase of out-of-wedlock pregnancies. Rise in sexual activity bc of loosened control. Men left pregnant women bc they couldn’t afford to support a wife and child.  Men made false promises.

5. Nursing and Childcare

   • Babies were prone to disease. Women who bore 6 children were at risk to die in childbirth. Died from blood loss and shock and disease from no sanitation. Breast-feeding was used as birth control. It also kept the babies healthy. Wet-nursing = other women paid to breastfeed a higher class woman’s baby.  Popular in N France. Reliance on wet nurses led to high infant mortality because of dangers of travel, conditions of nurses’ homes, and the need to share milk between babies.  More women were in workforce = needed to hire wet nurses.  No alternatives to breast feeding. 

6. Foundlings

   • Young women often didn’t want their children. Abortion was too dangerous and rare.  Some women gave birth in secret and killed their babies.  If discovered, infanticide was punishable by death. Foundling homes were founded and women often gave up their children to these homes. Annually, 100,000 children were given to foundlings. 50% died in a year. 90% died in all. Contemporaries called foundlings “legal infanticide”.

7. New Attitudes towards Children

   • Edward Gibbon said that the death of a child before parents is probable since most kids die before they’re 9, before they have faculties of mind and body.  Emotional prudence led to emotional distance. Some people weren’t upset when a baby died bc of their indifference to it, but diaries show that some families suffered greatly. Ben Jonson wrote “On My First Son”, a poem about the loss of his 6-year-old son.  Susannah Wesley, mother of John Wesley, agreed with “Spare the rod and spoil the child.”  She made her children fear the rod and cry softly.  In 1760, critics called for tenderness to children. They told women to nurse their babies. Rousseau wrote “On Education” in which he advocated breast-feeding and loose clothing.

8. Education

   • Commoners had access to public education. Taught kids 6-12 years old.  Religion played a role in the spread of edu. See pg. 595. Charity schools >> church funded schools for the poor. De La Salle’s Brothers of the Christian Schools. 5 hours of school 5 days a week.

9. Literature

   • Literacy had grown in men and women. The Bible – most popular. Chapbooks or pamphlets were also popular. >> were religious. Fairytales and humorous stories were popular for the adventure and supernatural component. Other books like books on how to *craft*. Almanacs. “Common Sense” by Thomas Paine was sold in pamphlets to the poor.

10. Leisure Activities

    • Pleasure gardens, lending libraries, theaters, and just hanging out. Urban Fairs, Blood Sports, carnivals (lent) pg. 597.

11. New Food

    • Grain was main staple. People believed in Just Price. Poor ate peas and beans and sometimes vegetables.  Fruit in summer months. Milk was too valuable to drink so peasants turned it into butter or cheese to sell. People ate less meat bc it was expensive but the rich ate a lot of meat and fish w/ sauces. More vegetables came bc of the new agricultural methods and the new American foods. POTATOES! Sugar and tea. Coffee. Tobacco. Chocolate.

12. Consumer Revolution

    • Consumer Revolution – growth in consumptions. Marketing and Advertising made people want things. Fashion became a female phenomenon. Parisian women out-consumed men. Houses became divided for privacy and food was served on individual dishes. More books decorated the shelves.  Hearths were replaced with coal stoves.

13. Church Hierarchy

    • Local Parish Church = focal point of religion. Church was controlled by state somewhat. Spanish Inquisition. Government >> Papacy >> Local Churches. Jesuits were influential in politics; they were teachers and missionaries also. Some catholic rulers thought that clergy should participate more in religious and social life.

14. Protestant Revivals

    • Pietism >> called for a warm, emotional religion that everyone could experience; Enthusiasm in prayer and worship; “The heart must burn.”; reasserted radical stress on the priesthood of all believers; Bible reading was extended to all classes; practical power of Christian rebirth in everyday affairs. John Wesley >> Methodists = methodical in devotion.  He believed that anyone deserved blessings.  Methodism became widespread.

15. Catholic Piety

    • 95% came to Catholic church on Easter. Pop culture + role in community life. Each parish had its own saint days and pilgrimages.  Jansenism >> heavy weight of original sin and predestination, Cornelius Jansen.

16. Marginal Beliefs

    • Catholics believed that certain saint’s relics could give luck or attract lovers. Faith + Superstitions. Denounced Paganism and pagan celebrations /rituals. Severity of the attack of popular belief varied. Last witch execution >> England 1682

17. Faith Healing

    • Evil spirits caused diseases; apothecaries sold herbs, drugs, and medicines. Apothecaries advertised and became part of the commercial society. Physicians were apprenticed and some had university education. Purging and blood-letting was still the cure-all.

18. Hospitals and Midwives

    • Army surgeons learned that if a soldier had a shattered leg, they could amputate it and cauterize (burn) it in order to heal the wound and increase chance of living. Surgery was dangerous because of the lack of painkillers and the unsanitary conditions of the hospitals. Patients died from the agony and shock. Midwives delivered babies and helped with other womanly problems involving breast feeding or menstrual cycles. Madame du Coudray wrote “Manual on the Art of Childbirth” >> taught better birthing techniques.

19. Smallpox

    • Lady Mary Wortley Montagu learned of the smallpox inoculation in Muslim lands. Had her son inoculated. Edward Jenner >> used the cowpox vaccination to prevent smallpox bc milk maids that had had cowpox didn’t get smallpox. Published his findings in 1798.