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SUMMARY:Popping the question: how relevant was marriage in the European pa
 st? Evidence from the Gurk valley\, Carinthia\, 1868 to 1938 - Catherine S
 umnall\, PhD student\, Department of Geography\, University of Cambridge
DTSTART:20100512T151500Z
DTEND:20100512T163000Z
UID:TALK25489@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Geography/SPRI Webmaster
DESCRIPTION:Not everywhere in Europe can marriage be regarded as a corners
 tone of the social order\, or the basis around which new households are cr
 eated. Michael Mitterauer illustrated back in 1977 how in eighteenth centu
 ry Carinthia\, Austria's most southerly province\, marriages amongst the l
 andless poor did not necessarily result in household formation or even coh
 abitation. In many more cases\, legal restrictions on peasant marriage res
 ulted in children outside wedlock\, either borne of a fleeting encounter o
 r a stable relationship forbidden its ceremonial and legal legitimisation.
  Yet strangely\, even after the Austrian state’s concern was piqued by t
 he extremity of extra-marital fertility in some rural districts\, the abol
 ition of legal restrictions of peasant marriage in 1868 did not result in 
 increased take-up of marriage in all parts of the monarchy. In rural Carin
 thia in fact\, births outside wedlock continued to rise\, and sustained th
 eir plateau well into the twentieth century at level of up to 90% in some 
 parishes. What meaning does a marriage ceremony have in such circumstances
  where its absence was first enforced by law\, and then made irrelevant by
  the evolution of practices of fertility\, sexuality and courtship that se
 emed to thrive on its very absence? In this paper I explore the reasons be
 hind the preferred option for the overwhelming majority of the population 
 of the Gurk valley in Carinthia\, prior to 1938: non-marriage.
LOCATION:Seminar Room\, Department of Geography\, Downing Site
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