Maps and Images for McKay 8e A History of Western Society Chapter 20 The Changing Life of the People Cover Slide Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Marriage and the Family Extended (three generation) families were a rarity by When young couples married they usually established their own households and live apart from their parents. The average age of marriage for the common people was 27, much later than originally assumed. Many married after adulthood, after beginning a career, and a substantial portion never married at all.

Marriage and the Family Late marriage fostered and required self-reliance and independence. Marriage was delayed among the common folk because they needed to make enough money to support themselves and a family. The son often needed to wait until his father died to inherit the farm, and a daughter needed to acquire a dowry. Community controls also helped postpone marriages.

David Allan, The Penny Wedding The spirited merry-making of a peasant wedding was a popular theme of European artists. In this painting, The Penny Wedding by David Allen, we see a "penny weding" in rural Scotland: guests paid a fee for the food and fun and any leftover money went to the newlyweds to help them get started. Music, dancing, feasting, and drinking characterized these community parties, which led the Presbyterian church to oppose them and hasten their decline. (National Galleries of Scotland) David Allan, The Penny Wedding Copyright ©Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Marriage and the Family Many young people worked within their families until they started their own household. Boys plowed and wove and girls spun and tended the animals. In towns boys may apprentice for seven to fourteen years in hopes of getting into a guild, or work as a farm hand. Jobs were always subject to economic fluctuations.

Marriage and the Family Girls commonly worked as domestic servants for a few years before marriage. While girls were rarely brutalized, cases of mistreatment and rape abound within the court papers. If a girl were to get pregnant she would be fired and thrown into the streets, where it was likely that she would become a prostitute.

Chardin's Kitchen Maid The leading moral genre painter in France was Jean-Baptiste-Simeon Chardin ( ). During the 1730s Chardin began to depict middle-class people engaged in ordinary, everyday tasks, providing valuable evidence for the historian. In this painting, a young servant, lost in thought as she pauses in her work, perhaps thinks about her village and loved ones there. (National Gallery of Art, Washington. Samuel H. Kress Collection) Chardin's Kitchen Maid Copyright ©Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Marriage and the Family Illegitimate babies were a rarity as far as church records were concerned, however premarital sex was common place. In some English and French villages 20-33% of babies were conceived before the couple was married. Unwed mothers and illegitimate children were seen as a threat to the economic, social, and moral stability of the community. Young folks often were pressured into marriage when a baby was expected. This means that in the villages premarital sex was not entered into lightly and was generally limited to those contemplating marriage.

Marriage and the Family Communities worked to police personal behavior. Overly offensive, adulterous, and abusive husbands and wives were publicly humiliated.

Marriage and the Family The number of illegitimate births soared from The cottage industry allowed couples to earn a living and marry earlier. It also encouraged marriage for love rather than economic ties between families. Work in towns attracted young men and women. Being away from the village meant less pressure to marry when the woman become pregnant.

Children and Education While women tended to marry late, once they did get married they began rapidly bearing children. Infant mortality was high. One in five children would die, one in three in the poorer areas.

Children and Education Lower class women tended to nurse their children for several years, which helped delaying the likelihood of pregnancy. Upper used wet-nurses to feed their children as they saw breast feeding as crude. Middle class women used wet nurses so they could go back to the shop and work.

Children and Education While infanticide was illegal severe poverty and increasing illegitimacy conspired to force the very poor to thin their own ranks. Foundling homes were started to take in unwanted children that were left on church steps. By the 1770’s 1/3 of the babies in Paris were sent to foundling homes. While established to end infanticide 50% or more of babies often died within a year.

Children and Education Doctors and clergymen urged parents not to become to emotionally involved with their children, who were unlikely to survive. They were neglected because they were likely to die, and they were likely to die because they were neglected. When parents did pay attention to their children it was typically to discipline them. The spread of humanitarianism by the end of the eighteenth century led to a change in child rearing, encouraging more love and play.

Peasant family reading the Bible Praised by the philosophic Diderot for its moralistic message, this engraving of a painting by Jean Baptiste Greuze ( ) captures the power of sacred texts and the spoken word. The peasant patriarch reads aloud from the massive family Bible, and the close-knit circle of absorbed listeners concentrates on every word. Only the baby is distracted. (Giraudon/Art Resource, NY) Peasant family reading the Bible Copyright ©Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Children and Education Literacy increased significantly between 1700 and 1800 for both men and women. Religious struggles by Protestants and Catholics served as the catalyst for promoting popular literacy. Prussia led the way in the development of universal education, inspired by the Protestant belief that everyone should be able to read and study the Bible. The most common readings for the masses were the Bible and then chapbooks, usually relating to religion. Entertainment through romances, Fairy tales, adventures, and fictionalized history came in second.

Map: Literacy in France on the Eve of the Revolution Literacy in France on the Eve of the Revolution Literacy rates increased but still varied widely between and within states in eighteenth-century Europe. Northern France was clearly ahead of Southern France. (Copyright (c) Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved.) Copyright ©Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Food and Medical Practice At the beginning of the 18 th century bread and grains were the staple of life for ordinary men and women. Grain was thus an important part of life and when prices rose riots often followed. Governments were aware of he problem and would sometimes try to control the prices to prevent unrest.

Food and Medical Practice Vegetables were also considered “poor peoples food”. Fruit was uncommon. Meat and eggs were rarely eaten due to the decreased standard of living and strict game laws. Milk was rarely drunk as it was considered to cause watery eyes, headaches, and other ills.

English food riot Nothing infuriated ordinary women and men more than the idea that merchants and landowners were withholding grain from the market in order to push high prices even higher. This cartoon depicts events of August 1800, when an angry crowd handed out rough justice to a rich farmer accused of hoarding. (Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum) English food riot Copyright ©Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Food and Medical Practice The diet of the rich consisted one rich meat after another. Usually three meat courses, followed by three fish courses, complimented with sweets and nuts. Wine was regularly consumed by the rich. The diet of the middle class towns people was less monotonous than the poor, but not as rich as the upper class.

Food and Medical Practice While the poor had a more monotonous diet it was more nutritious with the vegetables and grains, causing them less dietary problems than the rich. Diets become more varied as the century progressed due to foods from the Americas and changing farming practices. Potatoes became a staple for the extremely poor. Bread’s nutrition changed for the worse as it become more popular to have bread as “white as snow”.

Food and Medical Practice Medical science played a very small part in improving medical the health of most people. Care of the sick was the domain of faith healers, apothecaries (pharmacists), surgeons, and physicians. While some of the drugs and herbs undoubtedly worked many were more effective in speeding the patients to their graves. Bloodletting was still a common practice.

Food and Medical Practice Faith healers believed that demons and evil spirits caused sickness and exorcism was needed to heal. Apothecaries sold herbs and drugs, but were unregulated. Surgeons made considerable medical progress due to their constant practice on the gory battle fields. Physicians were trained like surgeons but for more years.

Food and Medical Practice While ordinary physicians were bleeding, apothecaries purging, surgeons sawing, and faith healers praying, the leading medical thinkers were attempting to pull together and assimilate all the information. Hospitals were terrible places throughout most of the eighteenth century. The customary treatment for mental health was bleeding and cold water. The humanitarian efforts helped eliminate filth and improve hospital conditions in the last years of the century.

Food and Medical Practice

Teaching midwives Madame Angelique Marguerite Le Boursier du Coudray, a well-known Parisian midwife who taught women from impoverished villages of Auvergne, sought to reach a national audience. In 1757 she wrote and had published the first of several editions of her Manual on the Art of Childbirth. This plate from the text illustrates "another incorrect method of delivery." The caption tells the midwife that she should have rotated the baby within the womb to face the mother's back, so that the chin does not catch on the pubic bone and dislocate the jaw. (Rare Books Division, Countway Library of Medicine) Teaching midwives Copyright ©Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Religion and Popular Culture The parish church was woven into the fabric of community life. Priests were the bookkeepers, charity workers, orphan keepers, and educators, ministering to the poor, and deliverers of salvation.

Religion and Popular Culture While the Protestant Reformation began as a backlash to the Catholic church, it would inevitably work to squelch those branches it saw as more radical. The papacy lost most of its power in Protestant and Catholic nations.

Religion and Popular Culture The Protestant Revival began in Germany and was known as Pietism. Pietism had three aspects that explain its appeal: –1. It called for a warm emotional religion filled with enthusiasm. –2. reasserted the earlier radical stress on the priesthood of all believers. –3. A belief in the practical power of Christian rebirth in everyday affairs.

Religion and Popular Culture John Wesley ( ) traveled on horseback 225,000 miles preaching that all men and women who earnestly sought salvation might be saved. Methodism grew out of this new idea.

Religion and Popular Culture While Protestants were removing “idols” from their churches Catholic churches were decorated to the hilt. Catholic Europe remained intensely religious and was an integral part of community life and popular culture. While many Catholic priests worked to purge the church of superstitions others compromised between theological purity and the people’s piety, realizing the line between divine truth and superstition was not easily drawn.

Religion and Popular Culture