Re: Stats
Posted by Cassia on March 17, 1998 at 14:41:13:
In response to stats, written by Caroline on March 12, 1998 at 20:22:04
] Care to reveal your sources, dear? Looks like there's a lot of meat in those statisctics....
I found these sort of stats in nearly every book I've read about Pre-Industrial England and particularly those about country life but the book with the largest selection that I can recall the title of at the moment would be: The Road to Divorce, it is about divorce, marriage, remmariage and other more informal arrangements. I forget the author but I can look it up and post it. Also, Lady Antonia Fraser has a number of books of English Social History but The Weaker Vessel states the same about the 17C.
Once the Roman chuch was booted out of England, and due to instability in marriage laws during the next two centuries, people without means were actually better off not marrying. So they didn't. If you didn't need to be provided with a legitimate heir for land or a business there was no gain in it and it might make you ineligible for parish assistance which could mean your life in years when the crops weren't good. People didn't begin tomarry in large proportion until this century when almost everyone gained the means to pass something or another on.
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