The Effects on Family Life

As stated previously, the agricultural revolution had a major impact on the economics of society. However, the changes brought by the agricultural revolution also brought changes to the family life.

Before the putting-out system and the enclosure movement, people tended to marry older. The average marriage age was twenty-seven or older. The reason for this was before couples could marry, they had support themselves economically. Women had to earn money for a dowry and men had to wait for their fathers to die to inherit their money. Furthermore, officials made laws preventing marriage among peasants because it was believed freedom of marriage would lead to more abounded children and more money for welfare.

However, this changed after the agricultural revolution. Children began leaving home for jobs. They went to the cities for employment. For girls, this often meant working as servants. Not only was the work for a servant endless, but the servant girls were often abused. Their mistresses would call them names and beat them because that was one of the few way they could exert power in their lives. Also, servant girls were also sexually abused because their were no laws protecting them. If the girl became pregnant, she was thrown out on the steer in disgrace.

Often these girls thrown on the street were forced into prostitution. Sound familiar?  

This time period also resulted in an increase of illegitimate children. Previously, even when premarital sex did result in pregnancies, couples would get marry because they were tied to the land and in the small towns they were held accountable for their actions by the peasant community. In the city, there were no community controls.

The increase of illegitimate children was one factor in the growth of foundling homes but not the only. Often the babies abandoned at these homes were from married couples who could not feed another mouth. Over one third of all children abandoned were from married couples. However, these foundling homes were not so great for the babies left there. In the best homes, only 50% died. In the worst, up to 90% of children died. Dropping children off at foundling hospitals became an almost "legalized infanticide".

This women is "anonymously" dropping off her bread loaf  baby. I guess the artist just wants us to imagine the nun can't see her.

Due to the high infant mortality rate, many women gave birth to six or more children. However one in five and sometimes even one in three would die. This resulted in many historians believing at this time, parents had a lack of emotion for their children (though this is debatable). It was believed that since children would die so often, parents were not supposed to get attached. This theory of lack of emotion could be supported by the numerous cases of overlaying. This was when parents would suffocate their babies by "accidentally" laying on top of them in the night. Austira had to make a law stating it was illegal to have children under 5 in the same bed as the parents to prevent this.

Here is a picture of those attached crib beds we discussed in class. 

Another morbid way of killing babies this chapter discussed was with killing nurses. During this time it was a common practice for upper-class women to hire wet nurses for their children because it was believed nursing was a undignified practice. It was also a common belief that a nurse passed her traits to the baby. So when children turned out poorly, the nurse was said to have changed it. Killing nurses were nurses who would get paid to nurse a child and then let it die so they could nurse another and get paid again.

The agricultural revolution helped improve the economy but it also resulted it a worse family life. People were making more money after the revolution but things such as an increase in illegitimate and abandoned children and people leaving their families to work in the cities happened. One argument is that even with the less happy family life, people would be happier because they would have more money. On the other hand, it could be argued that even with less money, people would be more happy before the agricultural revolution because they would care more about having a better family life.