Continuity and Change in American Family Pdf

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References

1 Peter, Laslett , 'Characteristics of the western family considered over time', Journal of Family History 2 (1977), 90.Google Scholar

2 Hajnal, , 'Two kinds of pre-industrial household formation system', in Richard, Wall et al. eds., Family forms in historic Europe (Cambridge, 1983), 65, 69Google Scholar. The formation rules of the contrasting joint household systems are: (a) earlier marriage for men and rather early marriage for women (mean ages at first marriage are under 26 for men and under 21 for women); (b) a young married couple often start life together in a household of which an older couple are in charge; and (c) households with several married couples may split to form two or more households, each containing one or more couples.

3 Also see his 'European marriage patterns in perspective', pp. 101–43Google Scholar in Glass, D. V. and Eversley, D. E. C. eds., Population in history (London, 1963).Google Scholar

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9 Cases included are Sturbridge (1780–1799), Northampton (1750–1799), Nantucket (1780–1839), Deerfield (1781–1800), and Hingham (1781–1800) in Massachusetts; middle colony Quakers (1756–1785); Prince George's County Maryland (1750–1800); and Virginia gentry women (1800–1839). From Table 1 (pp. 88–9) in Wells, Robert V. , 'The population of England's colonies in America: old English or new Americans?', Population Studies 46 (1992), 85–102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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11 If the birth record begins in 1700, and the first tabulated marriage cohort begins in 1720, it is obvious that no one who married over age 30 in the 1720–1729 period can enter the calculation. The way around this bias is to organize the early data by birth cohorts. There is, as Steven Ruggles has shown, an opposite bias in studies of marriage age based on the linkage of birth to marriage records; the calculation is biased downward because those who migrate before marriage are typically lost to observation; see his 'Migration, marriage and mortality: correcting sources of bias in English family reconstitutions', Population Studies 46 (1992), 507–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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20 The fact that contracts of indentured servants made in England were purchased by others in America make it very unlikely that there would be a kinship tie between master and indentured servant.

21 In England, the average for 62 communities, 1574–1821, was 106.6 males per 100 females; Peter, Laslett , 'Mean household size in England since the sixteenth century', in Laslett, ed., Household and family in past-time (Cambridge, 1972), Table 4.13 (p. 152).Google Scholar

22 Galenson, David W. , White servitude in colonial America: an economic analysis (New York, 1981), Tables 2.1, 2.2 (pp. 24–5)Google Scholar. It is likely that males were more willing than were females to become servants in America because the latter had to serve for a shorter period; ibid., Table 7.1 (p. 104).

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46 Of course, here is another of the unstated assumptions behind the Malthusian model: marriage was preferable to remaining single and earlier marriage better than later. No doubt this assumption has some validity, since the options open to the unmarried, particularly spinsters, were quite bleak.

47 A valuable comparative study of slavery and serfdom is provided by Peter, Kolchin , Unfree labor: American slavery and Russian serfdom (Cambridge, Mass., 1987)Google Scholar. Also see Peter, Laslett , 'Household and family on the slave plantations of the U.S.A.', in his Family life and illicit love in earlier generations: essays in historical sociology (Cambridge, 1977), 233–60.Google Scholar

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