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A Day’s Work for a Day’s Victuals: The Families of the Very Poor

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Book cover The Family and Family Relationships, 1500–1900

Part of the book series: Themes in Comparative History ((TCH))

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Abstract

In the agrarian societies of the early modern period it was possible to persuade oneself that the ‘ideal’ of the family preached in the pulpit and enforced in the courts bore some semblance to reality. If there were lapses, even serious ones, then it was still conceivable that the fallen might rise again. The tensions caused by political and social change, growing urbanisation and the drift of labourers away to the towns could at first be submerged by the overall dominance of the ‘household system’ in which both those of the middling sort and their dependants were housed and controlled. But there came a point when the traditional household became not the rule but the exception. In an urban environment it happened even earlier than in a rural. In Britain it was not so much industrialisation as proletarianisation that was the vital ingredient in this mix. In France it was not so much industrialisation as the replacement of a pre-market by a market economy based on competition and conflict. In the United States, to these ingredients were added the disrupted lives of myriad immigrants.

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Notes

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Open University, UK

    Rosemary O’Day

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© 1994 Rosemary O’Day

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O’Day, R. (1994). A Day’s Work for a Day’s Victuals: The Families of the Very Poor. In: The Family and Family Relationships, 1500–1900. Themes in Comparative History. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-23654-1_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-23654-1_5

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-0-333-37294-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-349-23654-1

  • eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)

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