Chap 20

 Western/Central Europe tended to never have extended families  Conjugal, autonomous nuclear families  Established separate households from their parents  In many villages, women and men waited until mid to late 20s to marry ▪ Monetary reasons ▪ Wanted to ensure sustainability

GIRLS  At home, learned to sew and tend to cows  Servants for higher status family  wages were usually sent to parents  Tasks varied from cleaning to cooking to babysitting  Would be subject to punishments like beatings  Upper-class men saw it as no conflict of morals to rape servant girls  If they became pregnant they were usually disowned by their own family as well as fired  Many became prostitutes or petty thieves BOYS  At home, learned to plow and weave  Would one day be farming their own land or working their own loom  Apprentices to a trade – not allowed to marry until completed training  Would likely need to move to find a village in need of their skill

NOM

 Up through 17 th century, illegitimate children were rare.  Women would often be pregnant at their wedding, but pregnancy usually meant a commitment for the men  Community controls made sure that there was a moral obligation being fulfilled – shaming those who left women

 After 1750, the number of children born out of wedlock exploded due to men leaving women behind for life in cities  Women started to see marriage as an economic opportunity at this time as well  Married couples trying to control or space out their children had various methods to do so (Abortions were illegal, dangerous and rare):  Coitus interruptus  Sheaths (rudimentary condoms)  Women breast-fed for 2 – 3 years

 Infant Mortality Rate was high  Priests and doctors warned families to NOT get attached to their newborns  In fact, if there were hard times, infanticide was not uncommon. Children were considered “unsaveable” by drs.  Upper class women often employed wet-nurses to breastfeed their children for them

 Compulsory elementary ed was not available to commoners until later 1700s.  1600 – 1 in 6 men were literate in France/Scotland, 1 in 4 in England  By 1700, 9 in 10 in Scotland were literate, 2 in 3 in France and ½ of British men could read  Chapbooks – pamphlets that featured stories of saints, prayers, devotionals, fairy tales and fantasy adventures

 Bread was the major source of nutrition – gruel and soups also made  Vegetables were considered “poor people’s” food – cabbage, peas, beans, carrots, salads (fruits uncommon however)  Protein from veggies and bread  Milk was linked to “sore eyes” and other ailments  Usually used it to make cheese/butter  Potatoes filled in the gaps in the poor’s diet Not as healthy – wheat germ and bran taken out

 Truly “carnivores”  Whereas the commoners ate little to no meat, the rich over-consumed it  Ate multiple courses each meal  Bloated, gluttonous in cartoons and visual depictions ▪ Did actually suffer from gout, liver disease  Vitamin deficiencies for both – C def was the worst – scurvy. A and D were also deficient usually

 Faith healers, midwifery – in villages  Used herbal remedies  Midwives had a “bad name” – mainly because they were women with knowledge  Apothecaries, physicians, surgeons – in cities  Used bloodletting and laxatives which could actually be more dangerous than helpful  Surgeons were actually the most precise and made the most medical discoveries and advancements  Physicians went through an apprentice period, but were less skilled overall

 If a disease didn’t kill you, the hospital did  Poor sanitation, no quarantining or separation of patients  Asylums chained the mentally ill or retarded to the walls, left them there  No actual caring for the patients  Believed in “lunacy” – that the moon made people crazy  Also railed against the dangers of male masturbation – that it made people mentally and physically ill

 80% of Europe had smallpox at some pt during the 1700s  Lady Mary Wortley Montagu -> heard of a vaccine from the Ottomans (injecting someone with the pus of a smallpox blister) –worked but caused illness/death in 1 in 50 people  Edward Jenner, English countryside physician, saw that dairy maids who had cowpox did not contract smallpox  Through observation, trial and error, perfected a vaccine that was used to basically eradicate the disease

 Protestant Revivalism – birth of the “born again” movement –keeping Christ in your everyday thoughts and actions  John Wesley ( ) Brit that returned to piety in CoE –started own sect of Methodism (methodical in devotion)  Catholics cracked on pagan” practices like festivals

 Commoners still engaged in feasts and festivals associated with saint days and seasonal changes  Blood sports like bull baiting and cockfighting common  Elites and educated viewed these practices as uncultured