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Marrying out of the lower classes in nineteenth-century Belgium

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 November 2009

BART VAN DE PUTTE ,
MICHEL ORIS  and
KOEN MATTHIJS
BART VAN DE PUTTE
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, Ghent University.
MICHEL ORIS
Affiliation:
Department of Economic History and Laboratory of Demography and Family Studies, University of Geneva.
KOEN MATTHIJS
Affiliation:
Center for Sociological Research, Catholic University of Leuven.
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Abstract

In this article we address one of the most prominent questions in historical sociology: did economic modernization in the nineteenth century lead to societal openness? In an attempt to answer the question we examine the chances for lower-class grooms of marrying upwardly in five Belgian cities (Aalst, Leuven, Ghent, Verviers, and Liège). Our findings show that there is no support for a meritocracy hypothesis. The chances of marrying out of the lower classes did not increase, in either absolute or relative terms. Social closure strategies were efficient in that they apparently prevented upward marital mobility for lower-class grooms. As these findings were measured in a highly advanced economic context, this study casts strong doubts on the relationship between economic modernization, meritocracy, and marital mobility, at least for the nineteenth century.

Sortir des basses classes sociales par le mariage dans la belgique du 19e siècle

Nous abordons ici une des questions les plus marquantes de la sociologie historique: la modernisation économique qu'a connue le 19ème siècle a-t-elle eu pour effet une certaine ouverture sociale? Pour tenter de donner réponse à cette question, nous examinons les chances qu'ont eues les candidats au mariage appartenant aux basses classes d'épouser à un meilleur niveau, et ce dans cinq villes belges (Aalst, Louvain, Gand, Verviers et Liège). Nos enquêtes montrent que l'hypothèse de la méritocratie n'est fondée en rien. Les chances de se marier au-dessus de sa condition n'ont pas augmenté, que ce soit en termes relatifs ou absolus. Les stratégies de clôture sociale se sont montrées efficaces en ceci qu'elles ont apparemment interdit aux candidats au mariage des basses classes toute mobilité sociale ascendante. Or ce que nous observons là apparaît dans le contexte d'une économie fort avancée. Aussi notre étude permet-elle de douter fortement de la relation qui pourrait exister entre modernisation économique, méritocratie et mobilité par mariage, au moins en ce qui concerna le 19e siècle.

Heiraten aus den unterschichten in belgien im 19. jahrhundert

In diesem Aufsatz behandeln wir eine der vornehmsten Fragen der historischen Soziologie: Führte die wirtschaftliche Modernisierung im 19. Jahrhundert zu sozialer Offenheit? In unserem Versuch, diese Frage zu beantworten, untersuchen wir in fünf belgischen Städten (Aalst, Leuven, Ghent, Verviers und Liège), welche Chancen Bräutigame aus den Unterschichten hatten, sozial ‘aufwärts’ zu heiraten. Unsere Ergebnisse zeigen keinerlei Unterstützung für eine Leistungsgesellschaftshypothese. Die Chancen, aus den Unterschichten ‘nach oben’ zu heiraten, vergrößerten sich nicht, weder in absoluter noch in relativer Hinsicht. Soziale Abschließungsstrategien waren so stark wirksam, dass sie offensichtlich Ausstiegsmobilität durch Heirat für Bräutigame aus der Unterschicht verhinderten. Da sich diese Ergebnisse auf ein hochgradig fortgeschrittenes ökonomisches Umfeld beziehen, lässt unsere Untersuchung zumindest im Hinblick auf das 19. Jahrhundert starke Zweifel an der landläufiger Vorstellung aufkommen, wirtschaftliche Modernisierung, Leistungsgesellschaft und Heiratsmobilität seien eng miteinander verknüpft gewesen.

Type
Research Article
Information
Continuity and Change , Volume 24 , Special Issue 3: SPECIAL ISSUE: SOCIAL INEQUALITY AND MOBILITY IN HISTORY , December 2009 , pp. 421 - 453
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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References

ENDNOTES

1 B. Van de Putte, Partnerkeuze in de 19de eeuw: klasse, geografische afkomst, romantiek en de vorming van sociale groepen op de huwelijksmarkt (Leuven, 2005).

2 S. Beauvalet-Boutouyrie, La démographie de l'époque moderne (Paris, 1999), 125.

3 See, for example, R. Erikson and J. Goldthorpe, The constant flux: a study of class mobility in industrial societies (Oxford, 1993).

4 The liberal professions, in medicine and law for example, are counted as elite here.

5 J. Kocka, Les bourgeoisies européennes au XIXe siècle (Paris, 1997). Much more can be said about the different sections of the middle class (see for example Archer, M., ‘Small capitalism and middle-class formation in industrializing Detroit, 1880–1900’, Journal of Urban History 21, 2 (1995), 218–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Archer, M. and Blau, J., ‘Class formation in nineteenth-century America: the case of the middle class’, Annual Review of Sociology 19 (1993), 17–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Blumin, S., ‘The hypothesis of middle-class formation in nineteenth century America: a critique and some proposals’, American History Review 90, 2 (1985), 299–338CrossRefGoogle Scholar). For our purpose, it is sufficient to distinguish between the new middle class of non-manual workers, farmers, and the self-employed because these are three different easy-to-distinguish types of possible marriage partners for persons from a lower-class background (since there are occupational titles in the marriage certificates).

6 G. Kurgan-Van Hentenryk and E. Chadeau, ‘Structure et stratégie de la petite et moyenne entreprise depuis la révolution industrielle’, in H. Van der Wee and E. Aerts eds., Debates and controversies in economic history: proceedings of the Tenth International Economic History Conference, Leuven, August 1990 (Leuven, 1990), 167–91.

7 H. Perkin, The rise of professional society: England since 1880 (London, 1989).

8 S. M. Lipset, Social mobility in industrial society (London, 1959).

9 At least until recently. Thanks to the HISCO classification of occupational titles (M. H. D. van Leeuwen, I. Maas, and A. Miles eds., HISCO: Historical International Standard Classification of Occupations (Leuven, 2002)), some attempts have been made to build comparative class schemes. See for example the SOCPO scheme used in the present article and described later in it.

10 See Erikson and Goldthorpe, The constant flux, 5, for a description of the thesis.

11 For a general discussion of societal openness, see van Leeuwen, M. H. D. and Maas, I., ‘Endogamy and social class in history: an overview’, International Review of Social History 50, supplement 13 (2005), 1–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Van de Putte, Partnerkeuze.

12 See, inter alia, overviews by van Leeuwen, M. H. D. and Maas, I., ‘Long-term social mobility: research agenda and a case study (Berlin, 1825–1957)’, Continuity and Change 11, 3 (1996), 399–433CrossRefGoogle Scholar; A. Miles, Social mobility in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century England (Basingstoke, 1999); and more recent research in M. H. D. van Leeuwen, I. Maas, and A. Miles eds., Marriage choices and class boundaries: social endogamy in history (Cambridge, 2005).

13 Van de Putte, Partnerkeuze.

14 Erikson and Goldthorpe, The constant flux.

15 M. Weber, ‘Open and closed relationships’, in D. B. Grusky ed., Social stratification, class, race and gender in sociological perspective (Boulder, 1994), 126–9.

16 C. Tilly, ‘Demographic origins of the European proletariat’, in D. Levine ed., Proletarianization and family history (Orlando, 1984).

17 Van de Putte, B. and Miles, A., ‘A class scheme for historical occupational data: the analysis of marital mobility in industrial cities in 19th century Flanders and England’, Historical Methods 38, 2 (2005), 61–92.Google Scholar

18 K. Van Isacker, Mijn land in de kering, 1830–1980, Vol. I: Een ouderwetse wereld. 1830–1914 (Antwerp and Amsterdam, 1978); Kurgan-Van Hentenryk, G., ‘A la recherche de la petite bourgeoisie: l'enquête orale de 1902-1904’, Revue belge d'Histoire contemporaine 14, 3–4 (1983), 287–332Google Scholar; Jaumain, Serge, ‘Le petit commerce bruxellois face au Bonheur des Dames: naissance de la grande distribution et nouvelles stratégies des petits détaillants (1870–1914)’, Les Cahiers de la Fonderie 3 (1987), 3–20Google Scholar; Van de Putte, B., ‘The influence of modern city life on marriage in Ghent at the turn of the twentieth century: cultural struggle and social differentiation in demographic behaviour’, Journal of Family History 32, 4 (2007), 433–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19 Delfosse, P., ‘La petite bourgeoisie en crise et l'Etat: le cas belge (1890–1914)’, Le Mouvement social 114 (1981), 85–103CrossRefGoogle Scholar; G. Kurgan-Van Hentenryk, ‘La petite entreprise de la fin de l'Ancien Régime à nos jours’, in Petite entreprise et croissance industrielle dans le monde aux 19e et 20e siècles (Paris, 1981), 189–220, and ‘A la recherche de la petite bourgeoisie’; M. Oris and G. Ritschard, ‘Dynamique socioprofessionelle dans la Genève du 19e siècle, enseignement d'une analyse de statistique implicative’, in R. Gras, P. Orus, B. Pinaud and P. Gregori eds., Nouveaux apports théoriques à l'analyse statistique implicative et applications: 4èmes Rencontres internationales d'Analyse statistique implicative (Castellaon, Universitat Jaume 1, 2007), 287–300.

20 F. Parkin, Class inequality and political order (London, 1972).

21 See J. Kocka, Les employés en Allemagne 1850–1980: histoire d'un groupe social (Paris, 1989), for an examination of the German case.

22 P. Hohenberg and L. Lees, The making of urban Europe, 1000–1950 (London, 1985); E. Shorter and C. Tilly, Strikes in France, 1830–1968 (New York, 1974).

23 Van de Putte, ‘The influence of modern city life’.

24 Van de Putte, Partnerkeuze.

25 See H. Kaelble, Social mobility in the 19th and 20th centuries: Europe and America in comparative perspective (Leamington Spa, 1985), especially ch. 2.

26 Literacy was connected with increased intergenerational and, to some extent, intragenerational mobility (D. Mitch, ‘Literacy and mobility in rural versus urban Victorian England: evidence from linked marriage registe and census records for Birmingham and Norfolk, 1851 and 1881’, University of Maryland Baltimore County Department of Economics working paper #03-107, available at http://www.umbc.edu/economics/wpapers/wp_03_107.pdf). Literacy was not only a tool on the labour market, it also opened alternatives to traditional behaviour (O. Boonstra, De waardij van eene vroege opleiding: een onderzoek naar de implicaties van het alfabetisme op het leven van inwoners van Eindhoven en omliggende gemeenten, 1800–1920 (Wageningen, 1993). Consequently, being illiterate may be associated both with the lack of valuable skills and with backwardness, and this possibly made illiteracy a strong element of stigmatization.

27 E. Le Roy Ladurie, ‘La démographie des Lumières’, in Le Roy Ladurie ed. La ville des temps moderns: de la Renaissance aux Révolutions (Paris, 1998), 293–348, 301.

28 Van de Putte, B., ‘Homogamy by geographical origin: segregation in nineteenth-century Flemish cities (Gent, Leuven and Aalst)’, Journal of Family History 28, 3 (2003), 364–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

29 M. Oris, ‘Cultures de l'espace et cultures économiques parmi les populations urbaines liégeoises au XIXe siècle: une relecture de la problématique de l'intégration des immigrants’, in Les chemins de la migration en Belgique et au Québec du XVIIe au XXe siècle (Quebec, 1995), 149–55.

30 G. Shaw, ‘Recent research on the commercial structure of nineteenth century British cities’, in D. Denecke and G. Shaw eds., Urban historical geography: recent progress in Britain and Germany (Cambridge, 1988), 236–49; G. Crossick and H.-G. Haupt eds., Shopkeepers and master artisans in nineteenth-century Europe (London and New York, 1984); Jaumain, ‘Le petit commerce bruxellois’.

31 B. Van de Putte, ‘The segmentation of the marriage market: the influence of geographical homogamy on marital mobility in 19th century Belgian cities’, paper presented at the 2006 XIV International Economic History Congress (Helsinki, 21–25 August 2006). In the case of rural migrants in the nineteenth century this is likely to lead to high chances for migrant lower-class children of marrying a migrant middle-class partner – due to the high number of farmers' children among the latter.

32 A. Jacquemin, ‘Alliances et reproductions sociales à Liège, 1840–1890’, in G. Brunet, A. Fauve-Chamoux, and M. Oris eds, Le choix du conjoint (Paris, 1998), 107–30, especially pp. 108–9; G. Ryczkowska, ‘Accès au mariage et structures de l'alliance à Genève, 1800–1880’ (unpublished thesis, University of Geneva, 2003).

33 K. Matthijs, De mateloze negentiende eeuw: bevolking, huwelijk, gezin en sociale verandering (Leuven, 2001).

34 Remarriages, especially when involving a woman with sexual experience and a patrimony, were seen as threatening the social order. See M. Oris and E. Ochiai, ‘Family crisis in the context of different family systems: frameworks and evidence on “When Dad died”’, in R. Derosas and M. Oris eds., When Dad died: individuals and families coping with family stress in past societies (Berne, 2002), 17–79.

35 We have information on the occupations of brides, grooms, their fathers, their mothers, and the witnesses. However, no information is available on the deceased, and there are many missing values for women.

36 Vandenbroeke, C., ‘Voedingstoestanden te Gent tijdens de eerste helft van de 19de eeuw’, Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Nieuwste Geschiedenis 4 (1973), 109–69Google Scholar; P. Scholliers, Wages, manufacturers and workers in the nineteenth-century factory: the Voortman cotton mills in Ghent (Oxford, 1996).

37 C. Desama and C. Bauwens, ‘Une petite ville au cœur de la révolution industrielle: Verviers et le travail de la laine’, in B. Van der Herten, M. Oris, and J. Rogiers eds., La Belgique industrielle en 1850: deux cents images d'un monde nouveau (Brussels, 1995), 87–128.

38 K. Van Isacker, Het Daensisme, 1893–1914 (Antwerp, 1965).

39 Jacquemin, ‘Alliances et reproductions sociales’.

40 P. Bairoch, De Jéricho à Mexico: villes et économie dans l'histoire (Paris, 1985), 344.

41 K. Matthijs, J. Van Bavel, and I. Van De Velde, Leuven in de 19de eeuw, de bevolking: een spiegel van het dagelijkse leven (Leuven, 1997).

42 Van Leeuwen, Maas, and Miles, HISCO.

43 Van de Putte and Miles, ‘A class scheme’.

44 More examples and a detailed explanation of the theoretical principles and operationalizational rules can be found ibid.

45 See B. Van de Putte and A. Miles, ‘Social power and class formation in the nineteenth century: how to measure class from occupation?’, paper prepared for the European Social Science History Conference (Amsterdam, 2006). Furthermore, we have recently summarized our decision to use occupation as an indicator of class in A. Miles and B. Van de Putte, ‘How to measure class from occupation?’, paper prepared for the workshop ‘The occupation in historical research’ (Leuven, 2007).

46 The group of farmers is the most problematic when one uses a class scheme based on occupational titles. Another difficulty concerns ‘masters’, but see Van de Putte and Miles, ‘A class scheme’, on this.

47 The group-size variable controls for the size of the middle class among fathers of brides. This size, measured as a percentage, can be seen as the structural chance of marrying a middle-class or elite bride. Controlling for group sizes implies that we can interpret changes over time and differences between cities as changes in terms of relative mobility.

48 Some interesting variables could not be included: presence of parents in the city (not available for all cities), and father of the groom alive or deceased (no registration of occupation for deceased fathers).

49 The new variable has the following categories:

  • •

    • Social origin=elite, own social position=elite or middle class

  • •

    • Social origin=elite, own social position=lower class

  • •

    • Social origin=middle class, own social position=elite or middle class

  • •

    • Social origin=middle class, own social position=lower class

  • •

    • Social origin=lower class, own social position=elite or middle class, groom is literate, and groom is older than 28

  • •

    • Social origin=lower class, and is not included in the previous category.

50 Note, however, that agricultural decline and proletarianization might have led to a quantitative decrease in the size of the old middle class in the course of the nineteenth century in Aalst and Leuven (see section 4.1).

51 Van de Putte, Partnerkeuze; Van de Putte and Miles, ‘A class scheme’.

52 This might mean that an elite position cannot be fully translated into upward marital mobility if one has a lower-class background. One should note, however, that the number of elite sons was very small (only 1.5 per cent of the sons of lower-class parents obtained an elite position themselves), which makes it difficult to achieve statistical significance.

53 Van de Putte, ‘Homogamy’.

54 Sewell, W., ‘Social mobility in a nineteenth-century European city: some findings and implications’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History 7, 2 (1976), 217–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Our results for period and location are perhaps somewhat puzzling. The findings suggest, for example, that in each city the chance of marrying upwardly was less strong than in Aalst – controlled for group size. This relationship appears only after adding the other independent variables. This means that if Aalst had not had such a low level of literacy and intergenerational mobility and so on it would have shown higher levels of intermarriage between lower-class grooms and middle-class or elite brides.

55 Recently, the significance of social closure has been confirmed by a study using different data (population registers), which demonstrated the power and the persistence of social reproduction in nineteenth-century eastern Belgian towns, although they were growing and were substantially transformed by economic modernization. See Oris, M. and Alter, G., ‘Effets de fratrie et mobilité sociale intergénérationelle dans la Belgique urbaine et rurale au XIXe siècle’, Annales de Démographie Historique 1 (2008), 115–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar