Dead infants and unmarried women--from forensic pathology reports 1910-12.

The lack of access to contraceptives and poor control over their own pregnancies represented a major problem for women 100 years ago. An unwanted pregnancy could lead to social exclusion and loss of paid work, and clandestine births and infanticide thus posed a social problem. A review of the archives of the Norwegian Board of Forensic Medicine in the period 1910 to 1912 shows that one-fifth of all expert opinions were related to infants and pregnancy. Autopsies performed on children constituted over one-third of all forensic autopsies during this period. Although the reports provide a timely reminder of the value of hard-earned rights in Norway, the lack of control over their own sexuality and unwanted pregnancies are unfortunately still the reality for a large proportion of the world's women.

The Latin American cohabitation boom, 1970­2007.

The article describes the rise of unmarried cohabitation in Latin American countries during the last 30 years of the twentieth century, both at the national and regional levels. It documents that this major increase occurred in regions with and without traditional forms of cohabitation alike. In addition, the striking degree of catching up of cohabitation among the better-educated population segments is illustrated. The connections between these trends and economic (periods of high inflation) and cultural (reduction of stigmas in ethical domains) factors are discussed. The conclusion is that the periods of inflation and hyperinflation may have been general catalysts, but no clear indications of correlation were found between such economic factors and the rise in cohabitation. The shift toward more tolerance for hitherto stigmatized forms of conduct (e.g., homosexuality, euthanasia, abortion, singleparent household) is in line with the rise of cohabitation in regions of Argentina, Chile, and Brazil where cohabitation used to be uncommon. Further rises in cohabitation during the first decade of the twenty-first century are expected in a number of countries (e.g., mexico) despite conditions of much lower inflation.

Sex, religion, and the single woman c.1950-75: the importance of a 'short' sexual revolution to the English religious crisis of the sixties.

The English 'sexual revolution' has recently become increasingly conceived as 'long', lasting many decades, and by some historians as a gradual phenomenon, but reaching a peak with the introduction of the oral contraceptive pill in the 1960s. At the same time, the 'religious crisis' of the same decade has been attributed by some recent scholarship to liberal Christian revolt within the churches, and largely unconnected with sex. This article offers different views. First, based on the illegitimacy rate, it argues that, after a period of decline, restraint, and only minor change in the period 1946-59, the 1960s witnessed a sudden growth in pre-marital heterosexual intercourse before the pill's availability to single women, implying a cultural rather than a technological cause. Second, based on contemporary social surveys, it argues that there is clear evidence of a strong inverse correlation between levels of religious activity and levels of pre-marital sexual intercourse. Third, it argues that in the 1950s the dominant conservative Christian culture restrained single women from pre-marital sexual intercourse, but that from the early 1960s changing attitudes led to rising levels of sexual activity, led by single women, which reduced religious attitudes and Christian churchgoing, thus constituting a significant instigator of the religious crisis.

"Birds of passage" or "career" women? Thoughts on the life cycle of the eighteenth-century European servant.

Frequently eighteenth-century service is described as a life-cycle stage used to build up the financial wherewithal to set up house. As such it was central to the way youth or girlhood was traversed, and studies of adolescent years rightly emphasise the importance of service. However, this narrative, while largely accurate, is also problematic. What happened when service did not end with marriage, or when a woman remained single well into adulthood? In practice, servants were found among both the married and single, and among the young and the old. Concentrating on the eighteenth century, and incorporating material from Nordic Europe, this article teases out some of the nuances in the context and experience of service that partially disrupt the established narrative.

Intimacy and the life cycle in the marital relationships of the Scottish elite during the long eighteenth century.

Traditionally marriage has been treated as one step in the life cycle, between youth and old age, singleness and widowhood. Yet an approach to the life cycle that treats marriage as a single step in a person's life is overly simplistic. During the eighteenth century many marriages were of considerable longevity during which time couples aged together and power dynamics within the home were frequently renegotiated to reflect changing circumstances. This study explores how intimacy developed and changed over the life cycle of marriage and what this meant for power, through a study of the correspondence of two elite Scottish couples.

Cohabitation: parents following in their children's footsteps?

As cohabitation has risen dramatically in the past few decades among adults of all ages, it is possible that middle-and older-aged parents are "learning" cohabitation from their young adult children. The present study uses this theory as a guiding framework to determine if parents are more likely to cohabit themselves following the start of a young adult child's cohabitation. Using three waves of the National Survey of Families and Households (N = 275), results show that union formation patterns are influenced by young adult children among parents who are single at their child's 18th birthday. Parents are less likely to marry than remain single and are much more likely to cohabit than marry if they have a young adult child who cohabits. These results show support for the hypotheses.

The educational gradient of childbearing within cohabitation in Europe.

Nearly every European Country has experienced some increase in nonmarital childbearing, largely due to increasing births within cohabitation. Relatively few studies in Europe, however, investigate the educational gradient of childbearing within cohabitation or how it changed over time. Using retrospective union and fertility histories, we employ competing risk hazard models to examine the educational gradient of childbearing in cohabitation in eight countries across europe. In all countries studied, birth risks within cohabitation demonstrated a negative educational gradient. When directly comparing cohabiting fertility with marital fertility, the negative educational gradient persists in all countries except Italy, although differences were not significant in Austria, France, and West Germany. To explain these findings, we present an alternative explanation for the increase in childbearing within cohabitation that goes beyond the explanation of the Second Demographic Transition and provides a new interpretation of the underlying mechanisms that may influence childbearing within cohabitation.

"One man one job": the marriage ban and the employment of women teachers in Irish primary schools.

In 1932, the Irish government, facing an economic downturn, introduced a marriage ban which required that female primary school teachers were required to resign on marriage. This followed a series of restrictive legislative measures adopted by Irish governments throughout the 1920s which sought to limit women's participation in public life and the public sector. Such a requirement emerged in several countries in response to high unemployment and applied principally to women's white-collar occupations, leading some commentators to argue that it stemmed from a social consensus rather than an economic rationale. Despite opposition to the ban from the Irish National Teachers' Organisation (INTO) on the basis that it was unconstitutional, would lead to fewer marriages and that married women were in fact more suited to teaching children, it remained in place until 1958. Although the ban is much referred to as part of the gender ideology that informed legislation in the early years of independent Ireland, the particular history of married women teachers has been little researched in the academic context. Over 50 years since the rescinding of the ban, this article examines its impact through an analysis of primary sources, including government cabinet minutes and the public commentary of the INTO and positions this history within the international context.

Queering the spinsters: single middle-class women in Norway, 1880-1920.

Constituting what may be called "a community of spinsters," Norwegian middle-class unmarried woman played an important role in undermining and destabilizing the heterosexual cultural matrix during the period 1880-1920. In their anti-sexuality, self-sufficiency and hatred of men the spinsters challenged the heteronormativity of the period, and their queerness still presents a challenge to the harmony-oriented, heteromormative Norwegian women's history.

New plans for housing in urban Kenya, 1939-63.

Until about 1939, guided by a policy of trusteeship, the colonial government in Kenya limited the number of Africans in urban areas. As elsewhere in East and Central Africa, employers and municipalities were supposed to provide only 'bachelor' housing for unaccompanied African men. After 1939, encouraged by London, the Kenyan government began to promote a policy of development which implied urbanization. The permanent presence of Africans in towns was accepted, as was the growing responsibility of municipalities for the provision of housing for families as well as for bachelors. Municipalities began to plan for new types of housing, with more community facilities in new types of neighbourhood layouts. From the early 1940s, a wave of construction created many thousands of new dwellings in all major urban areas, but only a minority were designed for families. Many women and children were accommodated in 'bachelor' housing where they were compensated through rental subsidies. Although Kenya's housing initiatives in the late colonial period did not satisfy all of the rapidly growing urban needs, they were a substantial achievement.