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Change in society, continuity in marriage: an approach to social dynamics through marriage contracts (Catalonia, 1750–1850)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 August 2013

ROSA CONGOST  and
ROSA ROS
ROSA CONGOST
Affiliation:
Centre de Recerca d'Història Rural, University of Girona.
ROSA ROS
Affiliation:
Centre de Recerca d'Història Rural, University of Girona.
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Abstract

This article studies social dynamics in the Catalan region of Girona during the second half of the eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth centuries, using marriage contracts signed before a notary. The analysis of this source reveals the existence of important social and economic changes, especially among the lowest groups of rural society. Among these transformations, the increase in the real value of dowries – especially in the case of treballadors (literally labourers) – stands out particularly, as does the appearance of new labels applied to new social groups. However, these changes occurred without altering the basic aspects of marriage patterns of the different social groups, as indicated by the strong stability of levels of social and geographical endogamy.

Changement social, continuité du modèle d'alliance: une approche de la dynamique sociale à travers les contrats de mariage (catalogne, 1750–1850)

Nous étudions la dynamique sociale en Catalogne, dans la région de Gérone au cours de la seconde moitié du XVIIIe siècle et de la première moitié du XIXe siècle, à partir des contrats de mariage passés devant notaire. L'analyse de ces sources révèle l'importance des changements sociaux et économiques, tout particulièrement au sein des groupes ruraux situés dans la partie inférieure de l'échelle sociale. Parmi ces transformations, l'augmentation de la valeur véritable de la dot – surtout dans le cas des treballadors (littéralement les ouvriers) – est notable, tout comme l'est l'apparition de nouvelles étiquettes appliquées à des groupes sociaux émergents. Cependant, ces changements se sont produits sans altérer les caractéristiques fondamentales des modèles d'alliance matrimoniale des différents groupes, comme l'indique le maintien d'une forte stabilité des niveaux d'endogamie sociale et géographique.

Wandel der gesellschaft, kontinuität der ehe: soziale dynamik im spiegel von eheverträgen (katalonien, 1750–1850)

Dieser Beitrag untersucht die soziale Dynamik in der katalonischen Region Girona während der zweiten Hälfte des 18. und der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts und stützt sich dabei auf notariell beglaubigte Eheverträge. Die Analyse dieser Quelle zeigt, dass es bedeutende soziale und ökonomische Veränderungen gab, vor allem in den untersten Schichten der ländlichen Gesellschaft. Unter diesen Transformationen sticht besonders der Anstieg im realen Wert der Mitgift – vor allem im Fall der treballadors (wörtlich: Arbeiter) – hervor, aber auch die Verwendung neuer Bezeichnungen für neue soziale Gruppen. Trotz dieser Veränderungen blieben die Heiratsmuster der verschiedenen sozialen Gruppen in ihren grundlegenden Merkmalen weitgehend unverändert, was sich am ausgesprochen stabilen Niveau der sozialen und geographischen Endogamie ablesen lässt.

Type
Research Article
Information
Continuity and Change , Volume 28 , Issue 2 , August 2013 , pp. 273 - 306
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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References

ENDNOTES

1 Pierre Vilar, La Catalogne dans l'Espagne moderne (Paris, 1962). On processes of regional specialisation, see Torras, Jaume, ‘Especialización agrícola e industria rural en Cataluña en el siglo XVIII’, Revista de Historia Económica 2, 3 (1984), 113–27Google Scholar. For a general interpretation of changes in the Catalan economy during the eighteenth century, see Torras, Jaume, ‘L'economia catalana abans del 1800: un esquema’, in Història econòmica de la Catalunya contemporània, vol. 1 (Barcelona, 1994), 13–38Google Scholar. See also the special issue of the journal Estudis d'Història Agrària (vol. 20), published in 2007 under the title Les transformacions agràries a la Catalunya del segle XVIII. 40 anys després de la tesi de Pierre Vilar.

2 On the importance of medium-sized and small agricultural exploitations in Catalonia, not always recognised by historians who have taken the English transition to agrarian capitalism as a reference, see, for example: Garrabou, R., ‘El desenvolupament del capitalisme agrari’, Història agrària dels Països Catalans. Segles XIX–XX, vol. IV (Barcelona, 2006), 15–21Google Scholar; more recently, R. Congost, J. Planas, E. Saguer and E. Vicedo, ‘Quién transformó la agricultura catalana? Los campesinos como actores del cambio agrario’, in R. Robledo ed., Sombras del progreso. Las huellas de la historia agraria (Barcelona, 2010), 171–97. Specifically for the Girona region, the importance of the smallholders has been suggested by Congost, R., ‘Sobre casos intermediaris i creixements espontanis. Els treballadors de la regió de Girona’, Estudis d'Història Agrària 20 (2007), 133–54Google Scholar.

3 We have counted more than 30,000 emphyteutic contracts establishments signed in the Girona region between 1768 and 1862, most of which consisted of small plots of land granted to smallholders. R. Congost, Els propietaris i els altres (Vic, 1990), 109–32. Also, see R. Congost, ‘The social dynamics of agricultural growth. The example of Catalan emphyteusis, eighteenth century’, in G. Béaur, P. R. Schofield, J. M. Chevet, M. T. Pérez Picazo eds., Property rights, land markets and economic growth in the European countryside (13th–20th centuries) (Turnhout, 2013), 439–54.

4 Chief among these sources are the catastro and the amillaramientos (fiscal land registers). For the region of Girona, these sources have been studied by Ivette Barbaza, Le paysage humain de la Costa Brava (Paris, 1966); and Enric Saguer, Treball agrari i reproducció econòmica. El Baix Empordà, 1850–1880 (Girona, 2005).

5 Jan de Vries, The industrious revolution. Consumer behavior and the household economy, 1650 to the present (Cambridge, 2008), 14–19, 83. The relation between family structures and economic change in north-western Europe has also been pointed out by T. De Moor and J. L. Zanden, Van, ‘Girl power: the European marriage pattern and labour markets in the North Sea region in the late medieval and early modern period’, Economic History Review 63, 1 (2010), 1–33Google Scholar.

6 The comments of Pierre Vilar on wages in pre-industrial economies are particularly relevant here: ‘Le salaire n'est une donnée économiquement et socialement fondamentale que dans les sociétés où domine le “salariat”... Il importe donc de ne pas attirer l'attention des historiens économistes sur le seul jeu des prix et salaires. C'est l'activité économique dans sa totalité qui est leur domaine’. Vilar, P., Une histoire en construction. Approche marxiste et problématiques conjunturelles (Paris, 1982), 175Google Scholar.

7 In the entire work of de Vries, the only reference to Iberia is to the consumption of colonial imports, in which he neglects to include chocolate, which was far more significant here than tea or coffee (de Vries, The industrious revolution, 159–60). For a discussion of de Vries's thesis in relation to Catalonia, see Julie Marfany, Land, proto-industry and population in Catalonia, c.1680–1829. An alternative transition to capitalism? (Farnham, 2012). Catalan consumption is also discussed by Claverías, B. Moreno, ‘Lugar de residencia y pautas de consumo. El Penedès y Barcelona, 1770–1790’, Revista de Historia Industrial 31 (2006), 139–68Google Scholar. On the importance of Spanish imports of cocoa in relation to other overseas products, see A. García-Baquero, Cádiz y el Atlàntico (1717–1788). El comercio colonial español bajo el monopolio gaditano (Seville, 1976); and Fisher, J., ‘The imperial response to “free trade”: Spanish imports from Spanish America, 1778–1796’, Journal of Latin American Studies 17, 1 (1985), 38–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar, here 51–7.

8 On this type of document, see Ferrer-Alòs, Ll., ‘Apparition, évolution et logique des contrats de marriage en Catalogne (XVI–XIXème siècles)’, Annales de Démographie Historique (2011), 23–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar. By the same author: ‘Les clàusules dels capítols matrimonials’, in R. Ros ed., Els capítols matrimonials. Una font per a la història social (Girona, 2010), 71–88.

9 By contrast, the practice of signing marriage contracts was starting to diminish in some proto-industrial towns and areas close to Barcelona from the eighteenth century on. See Marfany, Julie, ‘Choices and constraints: marriage and inheritance in eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century Catalonia’, Continuity and Change 21, 1 (2006), 73–106CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Julie Marfany, ‘Els canvis en el costum: Igualada en el segle XVIII’, in R. Ros ed., Els capítols matrimonials, 105–13. See also Codina, J., Contractes de matrimoni al Delta del Llobregat (segles XIV al XIX) (Barcelona, 1997), 78–80Google Scholar. In the region of Girona, the practice of signing marriage contracts had started to decline in some towns, but was still in full force in rural areas. R. Ros, ‘Capítols vilatans, capítols rurals. Els capítols matrimonials de Sant Feliu de Guíxols i la Vall d'Aro (1780–1860)’, in R. Ros ed., Els capítols matrimonials, 115–32.

10 Anderson, See S., ‘The economics of dowry and brideprice’, Journal of Economic Perspectives 21, 4 (2007), 151–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a historical anthropological perspective, see the classic articles by D. Hughes, O., ‘From brideprice to dowry in Mediterranean Europe’, Journal of Family History 3 (1978), 262–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Jack Goody, ‘Inheritance, property and women: some comparative considerations’, in Jack Goody, Joan Thirsk and E. P. Thompson eds., Family and inheritance: rural society in Western Europe, 1200–1900 (Cambridge, 1976), 10–36.

11 J. Lambiri-Dimaki, ‘Dowry in modern Greece: an institution at the crossroads between persistence and decline’, in M. A. Kaplan ed., The marriage bargain: women and dowries in European history (New York, 1985), 165–78; Marion A. Kaplan, ‘For love or money: the marriage strategies of Jews in imperial Germany’, in Kaplan, The marriage bargain, 121–63; Botticini, M., ‘A loveless economy? Intergenerational altruism and the marriage market in a Tuscan town, 1415–1436’, Journal of Economic History 59, 1 (1999), 104–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nazzari, M., O Desaparecimiento do Dote. Mulheres, familias e mudança social em Sao Paulo, Brasil, 1600–1900 (Sao Paulo, 1991)Google Scholar; Anderson, S., ‘Why dowry payments declined with modernization in Europe but are rising in India?’, Journal of Political Economy 111, 2 (2003), 269–310CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For Catalonia, see Llorenç Ferrer Alòs, Hereus, pubilles i cabalers. El sistema d'hereu a Cataluya (Catarroja, 2007); and R. Congost, Notes de societat (La Selva, 1768–1862) (Santa Coloma de Farners, 1992).

12 This is also suggested by the results of Pélaquier's, E. article ‘Alliance et lien sociale en Languedoc (XVIIe–XVIIIe s.)’, Estudis d'Història Agrària 22 (2009), 111–27Google Scholar, some of which are similar to the ones we describe here.

13 We find examples in the majority of diaries or other private documents of the period, such as the memoirs of S. Casanovas Canut, Memòries d'un pagès del segle XVIII (Barcelona, 1978), or those of Isabel Piferrer published in Comte, A., ‘Vida rural a les terres marginals de l'Empordà, durant la primera meitat del segle XIX’, Annals de l'Institut d'Estudis Empordanesos 26 (1993), 177–232Google Scholar. Miguel Heras de Puig also underlines the importance of the evolution of his family's dowries in his Biografía ó explicació del arbre geneològich de la descendencia de Casa Heras de Adri (1350–1850), first published in 1857 (second edition in Girona, 2000, with an introduction by Mònica Bosch and Llorenç Ferrer).

14 P. Gifre, ‘El procés final d'implantació dels capítols matrimonials (final de segle XVI–començament de segle XVII)’, in Ros, Els capítols matrimonials, 65–8. The regulation (or attempts at regulation) of dowries according to levels of wealth or status of the bride's family can also be found in other societies. As late as 1946, the Greek civil code established that parents were obliged to endow their daughter with dowries proportional to their level of wealth, their social position and to that of the future husband, Lambiri-Dimaki, ‘Dowry in modern Greece’, 167.

15 Some of these sentences are compiled in F. Maspons i Anglasell, Fons de Dret català (Barcelona, 1963).

16 On the Catalan inheritance system, see Ferrer Alòs, Hereus, pubilles i cabalers; Barrera, A., Casa, herencia y familia en la Cataluña rural (Madrid, 1990)Google Scholar; by the same author, ‘Domestic succession, property transmission, and family systems in the agrarian societies of contemporary Spain’, History of the Family 3, 2 (1998), 221–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 In the wills of the region, the testators almost always bequeathed the same amount as llegítima and dowry to all their daughters. This practice is also found in the marriage contracts that include clauses on dowries that had to be paid to the sisters of the groom. We have found very few exceptions to this rule, generally only in cases where the daughters suffered an important disability, which justified them receiving a higher dowry than their sisters.

18 These factors have been underlined, however, in other studies on pre-industrial Europe. See, especially, Botticini, ‘A loveless economy?’. Theoretically, should these factors prove relevant, this would be consistent with the view proposed by Gary Becker, wherein dowries are seen as transfers to clear the marriage market. G. S. Becker, A treatise on the family (Cambridge, MA, 1991).

19 This is what happened in some Spanish regions with a partible inheritance system, where the dowry often was an insignificant amount, except in elite families. Reher, D. S., La familia en España. Pasado y presente (Madrid, 1996), 77–8Google Scholar. However, the dowry was significant even in some regions of partible inheritance, in some historical periods and represented the total of what women received from their own family. For example, in medieval Valencia women received the dowry as an anticipated compensation for their part in the inheritance of their parents. At the moment of the division of the assets, these were divided between not yet married sons and daughters, excluding married daughters, because they had received their part before, at the moment of their marriage. See A. Furió, ‘Reproducción familiar y reproducción social: familia, herencia y mercado de la tierra en el País Valenciano en la Baja Edad Media’, in F. García González ed., Tierra y familia en la España meridional, siglos XIII–XIX (Murcia, 1998), 33.

20 The Registre d'Hipoteques was created in 1768 and lasted until 1862 when the new Property Registry was founded. On this source, López, M., ‘Una nueva fuente para la historia de Barcelona: el Registro de Hipotecas’, Estudios históricos y documentos de los Archivos de Protocolos 4 (1974), 345–63Google Scholar; Congost, R., ‘Una font poc utilitzada: el Registre d'Hipoteques’, Estudis d'Història Agrària 8 (1990), 201–34Google Scholar; M. Serna, La publicidad inmobiliaria en el derecho hipotecario español (Madrid, 1996); S. Villalón, ‘Els problemes de la informació en una societat d'antic règim. Els notaris catalans davant la creació del Registre d'Hipoteques’, in R. Congost ed., Dels capbreus al registre de la propietat. Drets, títols i usos socials de la informació a Catalunya (segles XIV–XX) (Girona, 2008), 241–74.

21 The time periods were chosen in order to avoid years of war. In the last period (1841–1843), we used the volumes from 1841 and 1843 since partial information from these years had already been entered into a database for a previous project. Although the Registre d'Hipoteques lasted until 1862, it underwent an important reform in 1845 which limits the information it provides after this date. Unlike during the other two periods, in 1769–1770 it was not obligatory to register marriage contracts at the Registre d'Hipoteques. Nevertheless, most notaries of the region did do so. In order to prove the representativeness of our sample, we have checked marriage contracts of some of the few notaries from 1770 who did not register contracts in the Registre d'Hipoteques. The differences observed are not very significant as far as both the socio-occupational distribution and the value of dowries are concerned.

22 The nuptiality rate of 8–10 per 1,000 is based on the data on marriages in the 1860s combined with the census of 1860, giving a nuptiality rate for that decade of 8 per 1,000. P. Martínez Quintanilla, La provincia de Gerona. Datos estadísticos (Girona, 1865), 47, 61.

23 On this source, see Congost, R., Portell, J., Saguer, E. and Serramontmany, A., ‘Dispensation from banns. A data source for historical demography and social history’, Population [English edition] 67, 3 (2012), 465–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 The comparison of the occupations of the sons of pagesos in marriage contracts and banns dispensations shows this. In the contracts, where heirs are over-represented, only 9 per cent of the sons of pagesos identify themselves as treballadors while about 80 per cent call themselves pagesos. In banns dispensations, which are more representative of all marriages, sons of pagesos identified as treballadors represent 18.5 per cent in 1769–1770 and 26 per cent in 1806–1807. Arxiu Diocesà de Girona (hereafter ADG), Dispenses de proclames matrimonials.

25 In the nineteenth century, the better part of those formerly identified as pagesos, despite the fact that they were rentiers, came to be known as hisendats or landed gentry. Congost, R., ‘De pagesos a hisendats, reflexions sobre l'anàlisi dels grups socials dominants: la regió de Girona (1780–1840)’, Recerques 35 (1997), 52–72Google Scholar.

26 ADG, Dispenses de proclames matrimonials.

27 Population censuses do not provide reliable information on this, basically because they do not allow one to relate a population's occupation structure to its age structure. This makes it difficult to compare the occupational structure of the censuses, which include adolescents, with that of the grooms registered in the banns dispensations or in the marriage contracts.

28 As deflator we used prices from the Girona market price series at the Arxiu de la Ciutat de Girona (series III.1.1.) The numbers are: years/period/price of a quarter (quartera) of wheat: 1769–1770/1760–1769/6.98 lliures, 1806–1807/1797–1806/12.73 lliures, 1841–1843/1833–1842/29.48 lliures.

29 Tendencies are similar when considering dowries of daughters of menestrals and treballadors. We have not included this information here because the sample is smaller since marriage contracts often do not mention the occupation of the father, especially in the 1840s.

30 The χ2 test shows that the differences between real and expected marriages are statistically very significant in all three periods, with a level of significance of 0.01.

31 Note that, in the case of artisans, we use the term endogamy in a very broad sense, classifying all marriages between artisan grooms and artisan daughters as endogamous, regardless of the specific occupations. The reduced numbers of artisans with each occupation in our sample do not allow for a more differentiated analysis.

32 These imbalances also explain why our calculations disagree with other indicators that can be used to study the degree of endogamy, such as the odds ratio. The calculation of the odds ratio would indicate that pagesos were the most endogamous group and would considerably reduce the degree of endogamy among artisans. On the use of the odds ratio in studies of homogamy, see Kalmijn, Matthijs, ‘Intermarriage and homogamy: causes, patterns, trends’, Annual Review of Sociology 24 (1998), 395–421CrossRefGoogle Scholar, here 404–5.

33 In fact, the two social groups frequently overlapped, since the term hisendat (rentier) spread between the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries, when many of the owners of wealthy farms, who had formerly appeared in the sources as pagesos, started to use this label. Congost, ‘De pagesos a hisendats’.

34 Llorenç Alòs, Ferrer, ‘Kinship as a mechanism in the social structuring of rural Catalonia (eighteenth and nineteenth centuries)’, Journal of Family History 29, 2 (2004), 135–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar. However, in the case of the families of treballadors, women could contribute to their dowries with savings from work before marriage, which would neutralise this phenomenon.

35 Calculating the equivalence of an average dowry in monthly salaries, although in our opinion this adjusts less to the experience of the majority of families than the median dowry, allows comparisons with other studies on very different periods and regions. The average dowry in the Girona region would be equivalent to 3.4 to 3.9 years of the wage of an unskilled worker, depending on the period. Comparing these with similar data presented by Anderson for India in the second half of the twentieth century, where a strong inflation of dowries was recorded, we see that our data are comparable with some regions of the subcontinent, such as Uttar Pradesh. There, dowries represented three times the annual wage of men in 1995, although it was still lower than in other regions of the same country, where dowries were up to six times higher than the male annual income. Anderson, ‘The economics of dowry’, 157.

36 Emigration was only important in some coastal localities after the 1830s. Any inflation of dowries that may have resulted from a shortage of men in these places is not reflected in our data because it was precisely in these coastal towns where the number of marriage contracts registered by notaries decreased most during the first half of the nineteenth century. Ros, ‘Capítols vilatans’. See also Ros, R., ‘The decline of indivisible inheritance in Catalonia: artisans, sailors and merchants in two Catalan towns (1780–1860)’, Journal of Family History 37, 1 (2012), 68–84CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

37 Congost, Els propietaris.

38 R. Congost, Ll. Ferrer and J. Marfany, ‘The formation of new households and social change in a single heir system: the Catalan case, 17th to 19th centuries’, in P. Pozgai and A.-L. Head-König eds., Inheritance practices, marriage strategies and household formation in European rural societies (Brussels, 2012), 49–73.

39 Benavente, J., ‘Social change and early fertility decline in Catalonia’, European Journal of Population 5, 3 (1989), 207–34CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Benavente, J., ‘La minva de la fecunditat a Catalunya’, in Història econòmica de la Catalunya contemporània. S.XIX, població i agricultura (Barcelona, 1990), 63–119Google Scholar. A. Cabré, El sistema català de reproducció (Barcelona, 1999).

40 Benavente, ‘Social change’; Benavente, ‘La minva’.

41 The information from the Registro de Hipotecas we have been working with does not show exactly which part of the dowry corresponds to additions made by the brides. To obtain more information on this question, we have consulted the original notarial documents (for the years 1770 and 1841) that are generally more detailed.

42 R. Congost, ‘Les pauvres, peuvent-ils s'enrichir? Une autre façon d'interroger la courbe de Kuznets’, in Jean Claude Daumas ed., L'histoire économique en mouvement. Entre héritages et renouveau (Lille, 2012).

43 The study carried out by Eulalia Esteve on the post mortem inventories of treballadors shows an increase in their material wealth during the second half of the eighteenth century, which is comparable with the upward trend in dowries. Assets decrease, however, in the first half of the nineteenth century, which contrasts with the rise in dowry values in the same period. E. Esteve, Homes, terres, cases i masos del Baix Empordà. Estudi de les transformacions socials als segles XVIII i XIX (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Universitat de Girona, 2011).

44 Narcís Fages de Romà, Cartilla rural en aforismes catalans (Figueres, 1849) (facsimile edition published in Barcelona, 1985), 30.

45 ‘See how well the menestral works the land, it's worth taking note. If only the mas could be worked like this, how much better the results would be’.