Cohabitation and Non-Marital Births in England and Wales, 1600-2012 - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1137396253 ISBN 13: 9781137396259

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014

Synopsis

Today, almost half of all children are born outside marriage, with cohabiting relationships accounting for the majority of such births. But what was the situation in earlier centuries? Bringing together leading historians, demographers and lawyers, this interdisciplinary collection examines the changing context of non-marital child-bearing in England and Wales since 1600. Drawing on Private Acts of Parliament, ecclesiastical court records, reported cases, sessions files, coronial records, poor law records, petitions to the London Foundling Hospital, the registers of the London Bridewell, the records of charitable institutions, surveys and modern demographic data, it not only shows the relative rarity of cohabitation in earlier periods but also discovers the nature of individual relationships. It also explores how differences in the extent of both non-marital child-bearing and cohabitation emerge depending on definition, source material, interpretation and location, building up a more nuanced picture of past practices.

About this title

About the Author:

Joanne Bailey, Oxford Brookes University, UK Éva Beaujouan, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Austria Eleanor Fox, Independent Scholar, UK Ginger Frost, Samford University, US John Haskey, University of Oxford, UK Elizabeth Hurren, University of Leicester, UK Martin Ingram, University of Oxford, UK Steve King, University of Leicester, UK Máire Ní Bhrolcháin, University of Southampton, UK Julie Shaffer, University of Wisconsin, US Rebecca Probert, University of Warwick, UK Samantha Williams, University of Cambridge, UK

About this edition

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1137396253
• ISBN 13: 9781137396259
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 266
• Editor: Probert R.