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From Acceptance of Nature to Control: The Demography of the French Canadians Since the Seventeenth Century*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2014

Jacques Henripin
Jacques Henripin*
Affiliation:
Université de Montréal
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Extract

Toward the end of Louis Hémon's novel Maria Chapdelaine, which is perhaps the work most representative of traditional French Canadianism, one finds this lyrical passage: “… in the country of Quebec, nothing has changed. Nothing will change, because we are a testimony.” This was written in 1916, but evidently many things have changed since that time. Economic evolution, urbanization, spread of knowledge, technical progress have greatly modified individual and family life as well as social environment. And these transformations have affected the very core of both French-Canadian society and French-Canadian individuals. As a matter of fact, they have burst the old framework of self-sufficient social life and they have transformed the most fundamental motivations of the individual and of conjugal behaviour. Even in the observance of formal moral rules their impact has been felt. It is not surprising that such changes have affected the demographic pattern to a large extent. Most French-Canadian scholars, social philosophers, and political leaders, who are specially interested in the French-Canadian ethnic group, are relatively unaware of the extent of this demographic change and some would not readily admit it. In this paper, I would like to try to throw some light on the main demographic facts and problems of this evolution or, as one might be tempted to name it, revolution.

Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science/Revue canadienne de economiques et science politique , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , February 1957 , pp. 10 - 19
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association 1957

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Footnotes

*

This paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association in Montreal, June 6, 1956.

References

1 See, for more complete information and analysis, Henripin, J., La Population canadienne au début du XVIIIe siècle (Paris, 1954).Google Scholar

2 See Huber, Michel, “Le Mouvement naturel de la population: la mortalité,” chap, rv in Landry, A. et al., Traité de démographie (Paris, 1945).Google Scholar

3 See Bourgeois-Pichat, Jean, “Evolution générale de la population française depuis le XVIIIe siècle,” Population, no. 4, 1951, 647–51.Google Scholar

4 Sabagh, Georges, “The Fertility of the French Canadian Woman during the Seventeenth Century,” American Journal of Sociology, XLVII, no. 5, 05, 1942, 680–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 Mashayekhi, Mohammed B., Mead, P. A., and Hayes, G. S., “Some Demographic Aspects of a Rural Area in Iran,” Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly, XXXV, no. 2, 04, 1953, 149–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 See Henry, Louis, “Aspects démographiques d'une région rurale de l'Iran,” Population, no. 3, 1953, 590–2.Google Scholar

7 Charles, Enid, The Changing Size of the Family in Canada (Ottawa, 1948).Google Scholar

8 Translated from de Lestapis, S., “Politique de contraception et sociologie,” Revue de l'action populaire, 02 1956, 169.Google Scholar