Factors affecting female age at marriage in South Asia

In contrast to East and South-east Asia, changes in marriage patterns have played a small role in reducing fertility in South Asia. While age at marriage for women has risen, it remains early, with the exception of Sri Lanka, and change has been slow. Except in Sri Lanka, the region has shown few signs that there will be a sizable population that will never marry. South Asia's marriage patterns reflect its cultural context and lesser socio-economic change but their precise effect is not simple or always predictable. The paper examines these issues in Bangladesh, where age at marriage is very early, and Sri Lanka, where it is much later. The study areas, Dhaka city and south-western Sri Lanka, are ones of great economic and social change. A particular examination is made of the way in which changes in the arrangement of marriage affect age at marriage.     

Faith,philanthropy and the aged poor in nineteenth-century England and Wales

In the last half of the nineteenth century, Victorians grappled with welfare issues regarding the aged poor as social investigators sought to explain their dependency and poverty. Elderly men and women who were unable to care for themselves, and without a family or community to attend to their needs, had few alternatives outside the workhouse in nineteenth-century England and Wales. Catholic homes for the elderly managed by communities of women religious such as the Sisters of Nazareth provided an important option to the aged poor who often needed both accommodation and medical care. These homes provided a unique form of social welfare which attracted the attention of Protestants as well as Catholics as benefactors. Protestant reformers, looking for different approaches to maintaining the aged poor, inspected these Catholic homes in order to develop their own institutional solutions. Perhaps more pointedly, this interaction between Protestants and Catholics offers a counter narrative to the usual histories that emphasise anti-Catholicism, sectarianism and conflict. Despite the anti-Catholic tenor of the times, the homes for the aged of the Sisters of Nazareth were recognized and funded by both Catholics and Protestants as they were seen as providing a much needed form of charitable aid for the aged poor. As an alternative to poor law workhouses, the institutions created and managed by Catholic women religious formed an integral part of the mixed economy of welfare in the nineteenth century.     

Changing patterns of familial sociability: family members as witnesses to (re)marriage in nineteenth-century Flanders

Based on research in three Flemish communities, the author concluded that during the course of the second part of the nineteenth century, there was an increasing trend toward choosing family members as witnesses to the marriage ceremony (of first marriages). This was interpreted as an aspect of the "familiarization" of marriage. It might also, however refer to changing family contexts and social networks, to switching roles of parents and youth, to shifting intergenerational power, and to new family situations of solidarity and conflict. In this follow-up study, the author demonstrates that the former conclusions also hold true for other Flemish regions, for all social groups, and for remarriages. It also appears that marrying people increasingly selected brothers and brothers-in-law as witnesses, rather than descending or ascending kin. These observations support the thesis of the increasing familiarization of family relations during the course of the nineteenth century.     

Sisters in cahoots: female agency in the marriage of Beatrice of England and John of Brittany

As the study of queenship and female agency continues to flourish, this article contributes to recent historiography which has increasingly emphasised the importance of family ties in the functioning of the monarchy in the Middle Ages. This was particularly prevalent in thirteenth-century Anglo-French relations, as Henry III of England and Louis IX of France were married to the count of Provence’s two eldest daughters. The sisterly bond between Marguerite and Eleanor was one of the key components of improved relations between the two kingdoms. One of the ways the sisters were able to restore cordiality was through the marriage of Eleanor’s daughter, Beatrice, to the heir to the duchy of Brittany. This marriage demonstrates the many facets of female agency in reinstating and consolidating peace between England, France and Brittany. It also suggests that Beatrice was more than a pawn and played a role in the diplomacy involved in securing her marriage.