1 Much has been written about the advantages and disadvantages of combining the two disciplines, e.g. Keith, Thomas, ‘History and anthropology’, Past and Present, XXIV (1963), 3–24Google Scholar. For a more critical treatment of method, see Thompson, E. P., ‘Anthropology and the discipline of historical context’, Midland History, III (1972), 41–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The contribution which each subject makes to the other is summarized by Kertzer, David I., ‘Anthropology and family history’, Journal of Family History, IX (1984), 201–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Michael, Anderson, Approaches to the history of the Western family, 1500–1914 (London and Basingstoke, 1980)Google Scholar, is a useful thematic guide and, in a recently published article, David Cressy reviews the literature on kinship, and provides a useful and extensive bibliography in his footnotes. See ‘Kinship and kin interaction in early modern England’, Past and Present, CXIII (1986), 38–69Google Scholar. Other discussions not mentioned in Cressy's work which relate to marriage in early modem England include Gillis, John R., ‘Peasant, plebeian, and proletarian marriage in Britain, 1600–1900’, in David, Levine ed., Proletarianization and family history (Orlando, Florida, 1984), 129–62Google Scholar; Gillis, John R., For better, for worse: British marriages, 1600 to the present (New York and Oxford, 1985)Google Scholar; John, Bossy, ‘Blood and baptism: kinship, community and Christianity in Western Europe from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries’in Derek, Baker ed., Sanctity and secularity: the Church and the world (Oxford, 1973), 129–43Google Scholar; Peter, Rushton, ‘The testament of gifts: marriage tokens and disputed contracts in north-east England, 1560–1630’, Folk Life, XXIV (1985–1986), 25–31Google Scholar; Rushton, P., ‘Property, power and family network: the problem of disputed marriages in early modern England’, Journal of Family History, XI (1986), 205–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Houlbrooke, Ralph A., ‘The making of marriage in mid-Tudor England: evidence from the records of matrimonial contract litigation’, Journal of Family History, X (1985), 339–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Houlbrooke, R. A., ‘Reading history: the pre-industrial family’, History Today, XXXVI (1986), 49–52Google Scholar; Alan, Macfarlane, ‘The regulation of marital and sexual relationships in seventeenth-century England, with special reference to the County of Essex’ (University of London M.Phil, thesis, 1968)Google Scholar; Macfarlane, A., ‘The informal social control of marriage in seventeenth-century England: some preliminary notes’in Fox, V. and Quitt, M. eds., Loving, parenting and dying: the family cycle in England and America (New York, 1980), 110–21Google Scholar; Macfarlane, A., Marriage and love in England: modes of reproduction, 1300–1840 (Oxford, 1986)Google Scholar; Peter, Laslett, ‘Characteristics of the Western family considered over time’, Journal of Family History, II (1977), 89–114Google Scholar; Martin, Ingram, ‘Ecclesiastical justice in Wiltshire, 1600–1640, with special reference to cases concerning sex and marriage’ (University of Oxford D.Phil, thesis, 1976)Google Scholar; Ingram, M., ‘Spousals litigation in the English ecclesiastical courts, 1340–1640’, in Outhwaite, R. B., ed., Marriage and society: studies in the social history of marriage (London, 1981), 35–58Google Scholar; Ingram, M., ‘The reform of popular culture? Sex and marriage in early modern England’, in Barry, Reay ed., Popular culture in seventeenth-century England (London, 1985), 129–66Google Scholar; and Vivien, Brodsky Elliott, ‘Mobility and marriage in pre-industrial England: a demographic and social structural analysis of geographical and social mobility and aspects of marriage, 1570–1690, with particular reference to London and general reference to Middlesex, Kent, Essex and Hertfordshire’ (University of Cambridge, Ph.D. thesis, 1979).Google Scholar

3 It is widely recognized that there must be room for considerable variation. ‘What is of ultimate significance,’ says Keith Wrightson, ‘is the question of the range of variation and the factors influencing it - economic system, social structure, age structure, demographic rates.’ See Wrightson, K., ‘Kinship in an English village: Terling, Essex, 1550–1700’, in Smith, Richard M. ed., Land, kinship and life-cycle (Cambridge, 1985), 319Google Scholar; and Wrightson, K. and David, Levine, Poverty and piety in an English village: Terling, 1525–1700 (London, 1979), 87–8Google Scholar. Also relevant is Houlbrooke's, R. A. section about the determinants of kinship strength, The English family, 1450–1700 (London, 1984), 50–4Google Scholar. Elliott, ‘Mobility and marriage in pre-industrial England’, part ii, chapter ii, throws interesting light on the characteristics of migrants to London in the early seventeenth century, by comparing their social origins and the range of their kin relations.

As regards studies of local communities, for the medieval period, see Smith, Richard M., ‘Kin and neighbours in a thirteenth-century Suffolk community’, Journal of Family History, IV (1979), 244Google Scholar, where he writes that ‘the most important feature to emerge from this study is the actual variations in the frequency and character of relations with close kin over the whole spectrum of landlords’. Wrightson examines the network and recognition of kinship for Terling and how the statistical pattern might be affected by specific variables, see Poverty and piety, 82–94Google Scholar, and ‘Kinship in an English village’, 315–26Google Scholar. His findings suggest a great deal of homogeneity, but he does discern some variation in kinship density, see Poverty and piety, 88–9Google Scholar, and ‘Kinship in an English village’, 320Google Scholar. Vann, Richard T., ‘Wills and the family in an English town: Banbury, 1550–1800’, Journal of Family History, IV (1979), 346–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar, explores further the question of kinship recognition, and finds that there are differences in social status. He is also able to put Lawrence Stone's thesis to the test regarding long-term trends (363–7), see Stone, L., The family, sex and marriage in England, 1500–1800 (New York, 1977).Google Scholar

As far as the quality of existing relationships is concerned, Wrightson says of Peter Laslett's work that he ‘is less able to examine kinship links between households on the basis of listings alone. Nor is he able to explore the nature and quality of kinship relations either within or between households, though ultimately these issues may prove of more significance in the process of social change than the preliminary problem of household structure.’ See Poverty and piety, 83–4Google Scholar, and ‘Kinship in an English village’, 314Google Scholar. His own method of assessing the social significance of kinship is, in turn, criticized by Miranda Chaytor, see ‘Household and kinship: Ryton in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries’, History Workshop Journal, X (1980), 28–9Google Scholar. She voices regret that the study of household size and structures with its ‘emphasis on incidence and structure has left the content of social relations both within households and between them, largely unexplored’ (p. 26).

4 Keith, Wrightson, ‘Household and kinship in sixteenth-century England’, History Workshop Journal, XII (1981), 154.Google Scholar

5 Keith, Wrightson, English society, 1580–1680 (London, 1982), 78–9.Google Scholar

6 Peter, Laslett and Richard, Wall eds., Household and family in past time: comparative studies in the size and structure of the domestic group over the last three centuries (Cambridge, 1972)Google Scholar; and Richard, Wall, Jean, Robin and Peter, Laslett, eds., Family forms in historic Europe (Cambridge, 1983)Google Scholar. Wrightson is confident that households in the English context were ‘predominantly nuclear family households’, Poverty and piety, 85Google Scholar. In his critique of Chaytor, he summarizes current knowledge of the English family system, ‘Household and kinship’, 154–7Google Scholar, and his own work on Terling underscores the importance of nuclear ties. See Poverty and piety and ‘Kinship in an English village’. This importance is seen in Alan, Macfarlane, The family life of Ralph Josselin (Cambridge, 1970)Google Scholar, chapters 7–10, and the notion of nuclearity is developed in Macfarlane, A., The origins of English individualism: the family, property and social transition (Oxford, 1978)Google Scholar; Macfarlane, A., ‘The myth of the peasantry: family and economy in a northern parish’, in Smith, ed., Land, kinship and life-cycle, 333–49Google Scholar; and Macfarlane, Marriage and love in England. David Cressy acknowledges that the quantitative evidence re-emphasizes ‘the familiar point that immediate lineal descendants and members of the primary nuclear family were the principal beneficiaries of wills’, although his argument is aimed at restoring the importance of kinship despite the statistical evidence. See ‘Kinship and kin interaction’, 59.Google Scholar

Concentration upon the nuclear household has, therefore, not gone unchallenged: see Chaytor, ‘Household and kinship’, and the debate which this article has stimulated, with the critique by Wrightson, ‘Household and kinship’; a note by Christopher, Hill, ‘Household and kinship’, Past and Present LXXXVIII (1980), 142Google Scholar; Olivia, Harris, ‘Households and their boundaries’, History Workshop Journal, XIII (1982), 143–52Google Scholar; and Rab, Houston and Richard, Smith, ‘A new approach to family history?’, History Workshop Journal, XIV (1982), 120–31Google Scholar. Vann, ‘Wills and the family in an English town’, 363, allows for greater recognition of kin in Banbury than in the wills collected from Terling; and Bossy, ‘Blood and baptism’, takes a largely theoretical line which emphasizes the significance of extended kin ties, though how far this applies to the post-medieval period is unclear.

7 Wrightson, , Poverty and piety, 82–103passimGoogle Scholar; Wrightson, , ‘Household and kinship’, 154–6 passimGoogle Scholar; Wrightson, , English society, 44–57passimGoogle Scholar; Wrightson, , ‘Kinship in an English village’, 318, 320–1, 324, 330, and 332Google Scholar; and Houlbrooke, , The English family, 39–62passim.Google Scholar

8 For what follows, see Alan, Barnard and Anthony, Good, Research practices in the study of kinship: research methods in social anthropology (London, 1984)Google Scholar. This provides a review of the major anthropological discussions of kinship. See especially chapter 5, 67–87 and chapter 8, 161–89. For new work on south-east Asia, see the collection of papers issued as Seminar on cognatic forms of social organization in south-east Asia (Amsterdam, 6–8 January 1983), and especially the paper by Jeremy Kemp, ‘Processes of kinship and community in north central Thailand’, 352–72. Also by Kemp, J., ‘The manipulation of personal relations: from kinship to patron-clientage’, in Brummelhuis, Han Ten and Kemp, J. eds., Strategies and structures in Thai society (Amsterdam, 1984), 55–71Google Scholar; and Kemp, J., ‘Kinship and the management of personal relations: kin terminologies and the “axiom of amity”’, Bijdragen tot de Taal-Land-en Votkenkunde, CXXXIX (1983), 81–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 Maurice, Bloch, ‘The long-term and the short-term: the economic and political significance of the morality of kinship’, in Jack, Goody ed., The character of kinship (Cambridge, 1973), 75–89Google Scholar. Cressy, ‘Kinship and kin interaction’, also has a bearing on the argument since he emphasizes the mutual obligation, value and versatility of kinship, and the potential for seemingly latent connections to be transformed into effective ties as the situation demanded. He undermines the distinction previously made between ‘effective’ and ‘non-effective’ kin, and between close and peripheral kin, but confines his argument for situational flexibility to ties of genealogical connection. For an alternative discussion on the issue of kinship language and morality, see Olivia, Harris, ‘Households and their boundaries’, 145–51.Google Scholar

10 On the simplicity of terminology, see e.g. Cressy, , ‘Kinship and kin interaction’, 65–7Google Scholar; Macfarlane, , Origins of English individualism, 146–7Google Scholar; Wrightson, , ‘Household and kinship’, 155Google Scholar; Wrightson, , English society, 46Google Scholar; and Houlbrooke, , The English family, 40.Google Scholar

11 Macfarlane states his position in Origins of English individualism and also in ‘Modes of reproduction’, Journal of Development Studies, XIV (1978), 100–20Google Scholar. This is further developed in ‘The myth of the peasantry’ and in Marriage and love in England.

For critical reviews of this, see the discussion by White, Stephen D. and Vann, Richard T., ‘The invention of English individualism: Alan Macfarlane and the modernization of pre-modern England’, Social History, VIII (1983), 345–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar; David, Herlihy, ‘Origins of English individualism’, Journal of Family History, V (1980), 235–6Google Scholar; and Keith, Tribe, ‘Origins of English individualism’, Social History, IV (1979), 520–2Google Scholar. Also, Lawrence Stone ‘Illusions of a changeless family’, The Times Literary Supplement (16 May 1986), and Diana, O'Hara, ‘Marriage and love in England’, Economic History Review, 2nd ser., XL (1987), 113–14.Google Scholar

12 See also Ingram, ‘Ecclesiastical justice in Wiltshire’, the chapter on matrimonial causes; Arnold Van, Gennep, The rites of passage (London, 1977)Google Scholar; Max, Gluckman, ‘Les rites of passage’, in Max, Gluckman ed., Essays on the ritual of social relations (Manchester, 1975), 1–52Google Scholar; and, more recently, Gillis is concerned with viewing marriage as a ‘social drama’ in For better, for worse, 3–105. See also Bossy, , ‘Blood and baptism’, 130–2.Google Scholar

13 On the more general question of the typicality of records, see Chaytor, , ‘Household and kinship’, 50–1Google Scholar; Houlbrooke, , ‘The making of marriage in mid-Tudor England’, 350Google Scholar; Rushton, , ‘The testament of gifts’, 29Google Scholar; and Rushton, , ‘Property, power and family networks’, 206–7, 215–16Google Scholar. Macfarlane warns that surviving records, in general, exaggerate tensions, see Marriage and love in England, 137Google Scholar. See also Sheehan, Michael M., ‘The formation and stability of marriage in fourteenth-century England: evidence of an Ely register’, Medieval Studies, XXXIII (1971), 231.Google Scholar

14 Martin Ingram emphasizes the abnormality of conflict, and claims that the dominant social ideal was ‘multilateral consent’. See ‘The reform of popular culture?’, 135–6Google Scholar, and ‘Ecclesiastical justice in Wiltshire’, the chapter on matrimonial causes, 118.

15 Rushton stresses that informal need not mean haphazard, ‘Property, power and family networks’, 206, and ‘The testament of gifts’, 27–8Google Scholar. Ingram, ‘Ecclesiastical justice in Wiltshire’, in the chapter on matrimonial causes, points out that formal contracts were not universal. In ‘The reform of popular culture?’, he questions just how common handfastings were and just how they were regarded, 141–3. Similarly, see ‘Spousals litigation’, 54–5Google Scholar. One interpretation of the noted decline in the volume of matrimonial contract litigation between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries, is that the laity were coming to accept the need for solemnization and were less ready to enter into formal, binding contracts. See Houlbrooke, Ralph A., Church courts and the people during the English Reformation, 1520–1570 (Oxford, 1979), 56–7 and 66Google Scholar; Houlbrooke, , The English family, 78–80Google Scholar; Houlbrooke, , ‘The making of marriage in mid-Tudor England’, 340 and 351Google Scholar; and Helmholz, Richard H., Marriage litigation in medieval England (Cambridge, 1974), 29–30 and 166–8.Google Scholar

16 Ingram, , ‘The reform of popular culture?’, 140Google Scholar, and Peter, Clark, English provincial society from the Reformation to the Revolution: religion, politics and society in Kent, 1500–1640 (Cranbury, 1977), 156.Google Scholar

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18 See as in note 3.

19 See Sheehan, Michael M., ‘Choice of marriage partner in the Middle Ages: development and mode of application of a theory of marriage’, Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History, new ser., I (1978), 4, on the underlying diversity of family patterns in medieval Europe.Google Scholar

20 E.g. Sheehan, , ‘The formation and stability of marriage’, 229–30, 253 and 263Google Scholar; Sheehan, ‘Choice of marriage partner’; Noonan, John T. Jr, ‘Power to choose’, Viator: Medieval and Renaissance Studies, IV (1973), 419–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Charles, Donahue Jr, ‘The canon law on the formation of marriage and social practice in the later Middle Ages’, Journal of Family History, VIII (1983), 144–7 and 155–7Google Scholar. For the law on matrimonial contracts, see also Helmholz, , Marriage litigation, 25–73 and especially 26–31.Google Scholar

21 Canterbury Cathedral Archives and Library, Canterbury (hereafter C.C.A.L.), MS. X/10/11, fos. 180^V–181^V, Wattle versus Dunnye and Kennet, (1570).

22 For important comparative discussions of these issues of constraint, parental control, the wider influence of kin, and ‘goodwill’, see Ingram, ‘Ecclesiastical justice in Wiltshire’, the chapter on matrimonial causes; Ingram, ‘Spousals litigation’; Ingram, ‘The reform of popular culture?’; Houlbrooke, , Church courts and the people, 56–64Google Scholar; Houlbrooke, The English family, chapter 4; Houlbrooke, ‘The making of marriage in mid-Tudor England’; and Wrightson, , English society, 70–88Google Scholar. All three authors are critical of Stone's patriarchal ideal in The family, sex and marriage, 69–146Google Scholar, and modify this by stressing the importance of love, free choice subject to advice and obligation, and the flexibility of marriage behaviour. Macfarlane's, Marriage and love in England, 119–47 and 291–317Google Scholar, is a much more extreme individualistic interpretation. His initial exploration of these issues may be found in ‘The regulation of marital and sexual relationships’, chapter 3, later published as ‘The informal social control of marriage’. Chaytor, , ‘Household and kinship’, 41–3Google Scholar, makes the point that love and passion were compatible with other interests, and that generational conflict did not always arise because of a rigid distinction between emotional and material factors. Rushton, ‘Property, power and family networks’, examines the forms of power which existed within the network of family and friends, and emphasizes the limitations to individual freedom. For a European example, see Lyndal, Roper, ‘“Going to church and street”: weddings in Reformation Augsburg’, Past and Present, CVI (1985), 62–101 and especially 93–8.Google Scholar

23 See, e.g. Elliott, ‘Mobility and marriage in pre-industrial England’, part 3.

24 C.C.A.L., MS. X/10/12, fo. 97, Mundell versus Filcott (1564).

25 Ibid., MS. X/10/12, fo. 133^V, Bennet versus Fletcher (1564).

26 Ibid., MS. X/10/6, fo. 135, Hartridge versus Morling (1556).

27 Ibid., MS. X/10/9, fo. 7, Robinson versus Baker (1562).

28 Ibid., MS. X/10/3, fos. 1–1^V, Rolfe versus Jenkyne (1545–1548).

29 Ibid., MS. X/10/11, fo. 231^V (1570).

30 Ibid., MS. X/10/10, fos. 74^V and 76, Read versus Ladd (1563).

31 Ibid., MS. X/10/8, fos. 205^V–206, Gaunt versus Marsh (1562).

32 Ibid., MS. X/10/7, fos. 168^V, 170–171^v, Austen versus Rogers (1567).

33 Ibid., MS. X/10/7, fo. 134^V (1560).

34 A. F. Butcher, ‘The honest and the lewd in sixteenth-century Canterbury: the case of Mrs. Butterwick’, Paper delivered at the Graduate Research Seminar, Department of History, University of Kent at Canterbury (19 October 1983).

35 The importance of the institution of service and its demographic, social and economic consequences are well attested to. See e.g. Macfarlane, , Marriage and love in England, 11, 82–7, 267–8, 276 and 334Google Scholar; Peter, Laslett, Family life and illicit love in earlier generations (Cambridge, 1977), 12–14, 34, 45–6, 61, 72–5, 163–5 and 228Google Scholar; Houlbrooke, , ‘The making of marriage in mid-Tudor England’, 343Google Scholar; and Ingram, , ‘The reform of popular culture?’, 133–5Google Scholar. Service is seen as a crucial factor favouring freedom of choice in marriage partner, see e.g. Wrightson, , English society, 74, 85–6Google Scholar; Houlbrooke, , The English family, 64 and 72Google Scholar; and Goldberg, P. J. P., ‘Marriage, migration, servanthood and life-cycle in Yorkshire towns of the later Middle Ages: some York cause paper evidence’, Continuity and Change, I (1986), 141–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar. McIntosh, Marjorie K., ‘Servants and the household unit in an Elizabethan English community’, Journal of Family History, IX (1984), 19–21Google Scholar, draws attention to the opportunity which service provided for positive relations between servants, and between servants and their masters. On the other hand, Chaytor, , ‘Household and kinship’, 47–8Google Scholar, considers that service may have been a bleak alternative to remaining at home for Ryton women, and Rushton, , ‘Property, power and family networks’, 212–15Google Scholar, argues that masters might also interfere in the marriage plans of servants and apprentices, particularly those of younger servants. See also Houlbrooke, , Church courts and the people, 64.Google Scholar

36 C.C.A.L., MS. X/10/7, fos. 165^V–66, 206^V, 208^V–209^V, Haffynden versus Austen (1567).

37 Ibid., MS. X/10/7, fos. 257^v–259, 260, 286–7, 292, 293^V–294^V, 296^V–297, 298^V–299^V, 300^V, 302–302^V (1567–1568).

38 See Sheehan, , ‘The formation and stability of marriage’, 240–3 on the abuse of solemnization.Google Scholar

39 The suggestion that widows might act more independently is also made by Houlbrooke, The English family, 211–15Google Scholar; Houlbrooke, , ‘The making of marriage in mid-Tudor England’, 346Google Scholar; and Macfarlane, , Marriage and love in England, 231–7Google Scholar. Macfarlane also notes the important property rights which widows and women, in general, possessed. See Macfarlane, , Origins of English individualism, 80–4 and 131–4Google Scholar. It is worth pointing out that, in England, rough music does not seem to have been concerned with ritual displeasure of widow remarriage. The characteristic pretext was female insubordination and was not, therefore, directly concerned with social control of remarriage. See Martin Ingram, ‘Ridings, rough music and the “reform of popular culture” in early modern England’, Past and Present, CV (1984), 79–113Google Scholar; and Martin, Ingram, ‘Ridings, rough music and mocking rhymes in early modern England’, in Reay, ed., Popular culture in seventeenth-century England, 166–98Google Scholar. Chaytor argues that though remarriage was not economically necessary for widows in Ryton, women were the object of transaction between kin, ‘Household and kinship’, 43–4Google Scholar. Her views on remarriage are criticized by Houston, and Smith, , ‘A new approach to family history?’, 123–6Google Scholar, who draw attention to the different circumstances in which widows found themselves, and the effect of underlying economic conditions on the marriage of widows. See e.g. Titow, J. Z., ‘Some differences between manors and their effects on the conditions of the peasant in the thirteenth century’, Agricultural History Review, X (1962), 1–13Google Scholar. The subject of remarriage in general has been given a cross-cultural examination in Dupaquier, J., Hélin, E., Laslett, P., Livi-Bacci, M. and Sogner, S. eds., Marriage and remarriage in populations of the past (London, 1981).Google Scholar

40 C.C.A.L., MS. X/10/8, fos. 115^V–116^V, 118, 123, 124–8, 141–2 (1561).

41 Ibid., MS. X/10/7, fo. 17, Coppyn versus Richard (1560).

42 Ibid., MS. X/10/13, fos. 44–44^V (1570).

43 Ibid., MS. X/10/11, fos. 183–6, 187^V–189^V, Kennet versus Dunnye (1570). Macfarlane finds that in Earls Colne between 1560 and 1660, there was no significant rate of intermarriage between families already linked by marriage or blood. See Macfarlane, ‘The regulation of marital and sexual relationships’, chapter 3, and ‘The informal social control of marriage’. He also notes that incest cases as a proportion of other cases in the Essex courts were negligible, ‘The regulation of marital and sexual relationships’, chapter 2. Helmholz points out the absence of marriages involving impediments to marriage within the prohibited degrees, Marriage litigation, 77–87Google Scholar, and Houlbrooke also indicates that there were few suits for annulment of marriage contracted within prohibited degrees, Church courts and the people, 74–5Google Scholar. It is, however, worth suggesting, as Macfarlane has done, that it may be that groups based on some other criterion, had a high rate of intermarriage, ‘The regulation of marital and sexual relationships’, chapter 3. In any case, if kinship is to be redefined along the lines suggested in this paper, the concept of intermarriage will also need modification, and folk ideas of what constituted endogamy and incest etc. will need consideration.

44 Ingram, ‘Ecclesiastical justice in Wiltshire’, 117, says that ‘no definite range of kin were conventionally accepted as having an interest’ in marriage processes. See also, Ingram, , ‘Spousals litigation’, 48Google Scholar. Rushton, , ‘Property, power and family networks’, 211–12Google Scholar, concludes that, despite Bossy's suggestion of organized groupings in the late medieval period, there was no observable coherent group of kin, but rather, a loosely structured group. As regards the wedding, this was not attended by a specific category of persons, see Macfarlane, , Marriage and love in England, 312–13Google Scholar. This is consistent with Lyndal Roper's findings for Augsburg that wedding ordinances supplied no consistent definition of the kin group, ‘“Going to church and street”’, 94–5. See also, Houlbrooke, , ‘The making of marriage in mid-Tudor England’, 342–3, for comparative evidence of who the witnesses were.Google Scholar

45 C.C.A.L., MS. X/10/6, fos. 116^V–117, Lambard versus Harewood (1556).

46 See e.g. Homans, George C., English villagers of the thirteenth century (New York, 1970), 175–6Google Scholar; Lucy, Mair, Marriage (London, 1977), especially chapter 7Google Scholar; Van Gennep, The rites of passage, especially chapter 7; Gluckman, ed., Essays on the ritual of social relations, 1–52Google Scholar; and Radcliffe-Brown, A. R., ‘Introduction’, in Radcliffe-Brown, A. R. and Forde, C. D. eds., African systems of kinship and marriage (Oxford, 1975), 43–60Google Scholar. Wedding rituals are also discussed in Roper, ‘“Going to church and street”’, and Martine, Segalen, Love and power in the peasant family (Oxford, 1983), chapter 1, 11–37.Google Scholar

47 Sheehan, , ‘The formation and stability of marriage’, 248–9Google Scholar, suggests a variety of modes of publicity.

48 C.C.A.L., MS. X/10/6, fos. 39–39^v, Davye versus Wright (1553–1554).

49 Ibid., MS. X/10/8, fo. 34 (1562).

50 Ibid., MS. X/10/4, fo. 83^V (1549).

51 See e.g. C.C.A.L., MS. X/10/2, fos. 112^V–113, 114–114^V, Lye versus Wood (1544).

52 C.C.A.L., MS. X/10/6, fos. 128–128^V, Austen versus Burrett (1556).

53 Ibid., MS. X/10/6, fos. 115, 116^V (1556).

54 Ibid., MS. X/10/3, fos. 19^V–20, 22–22^v, Munday versus Parker (1548).

55 Ibid., MS. X/10/4, fo. 17, Clement versus Weldish (1549).

56 Ibid., MS. X/10/6, fos. 118^V–120, 126^V, 131–131^v, Chinting versus Besbiche (1556).

57 For a discussion of concepts of honour and reputation, see Sharpe, ‘Defamation and sexual slander’; Butcher, ‘The honest and the lewd’; Pitt-Rivers, J. A., ‘Honour and social status’, in Peristiany, John George ed., Honour and shame: the values of Mediterranean society (London, 1965), 19–77Google Scholar; John, Davis, People of the Mediterranean: an essay in comparative social anthropology (London, 1977), 89–101Google Scholar; and Bailey, F. G. ed., Gifts and poison: the politics of reputation (Oxford, 1971), 1–26.Google Scholar

58 C.C.A.L., MS. X/10/11, fos. 262^V–264^V, Bouche versus Cadman (1569–1570).

59 The subject of gift and token giving has long been of interest to anthropologists, e.g. Marcel, Mauss, The gift: forms and functions of exchange in archaic societies (London, 1974)Google Scholar, and antiquarians, but seems to have received relatively little attention from historians. There is the well-known account ‘Concerning our fashions att our country weddings’, in Woodward, D. M. ed., The farming and memorandum books of Henry Best of Elmswell, 1642, (Records of Social and Economic History, new ser., VIII, London, 1984)Google Scholar, as well as references in, e.g., Macfarlane, , Marriage and love in England, 300–1Google Scholar; Houlbrooke, , Church courts and the people, 60–1Google Scholar; Houlbrooke, , ‘The making of marriage in mid-Tudor England’, 344Google Scholar; Ingram, , ‘Ecclesiastical justice in Wiltshire’, chapter on matrimonial causes; Ingram, ‘Spousals litigation’, 46–7Google Scholar; Chaytor, , ‘Household and kinship’, 42Google Scholar; Gillis, , For better, for worse, 31–4Google Scholar; and Segalen, , Love and power in the peasant family, 18–19Google Scholar. A more detailed treatment can be found in Rushton, ‘The testament of gifts’, and in Diana O'Hara, ‘The language of tokens and the making of marriage’, paper delivered to the Northern Economic History Conference, Hull (November 1986).

60 Macfarlane, , Origins of English individualism, 29, cites this as a basic feature of peasant society.Google Scholar

61 See also Sheehan, , ‘Choice of marriage partner’, 7–8, 28 and 32–3Google Scholar. Ingram makes the point that emphasis on the openness of solemnization might bolster the influence of the wider, parochial community, as well as family influence. See ‘Spousals litigation’, 55–6Google Scholar, and ‘The reform of popular culture?’. On the calling of banns, see also Gillis, , For better, for worse, 52–4.Google Scholar

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65 C.C.A.L., MS. X/10/6, fo. 115^V, Lambard versus Harewood (1556).

66 Ibid., MS. X/10/3, fo. 32 (1546).

67 Ibid., MS. X/10/11, fos. 275–80 (1570).

68 I am suggesting here that parental, kin or community disapproval of choice of partner might conceivably result in delayed marriages and frustrated plans, and consequently might be regarded as one possible factor contributing to pre-nuptial pregnancies. It would, of course, be absurd to account for all pre-nuptial pregnancies in this way, given the high national figures for bridal pregnancy in this period. See Hair, P. E. H., ‘Bridal pregnancy in rural England in earlier centuries’, Population Studies, XX (1966), 233–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Macfarlane finds that in Essex in the late sixteenth century, 10 to 20 per cent of brides were pregnant. See Marriage and love in England, 303–6Google Scholar. He stresses the tolerant attitude shown to bridal pregnancy, and the need for ‘sexual conversation’ between partners. See also Macfarlane, ‘The regulation of marital and sexual relationships’, chapter 4. Ingram also concludes that bridal pregnancy did not appear to involve much shame, and that intercourse between a betrothed couple probably went largely uncondemned by the community. He is, however, anxious to point out the ambivalence in attitude towards antenuptial fornication, and an intensification of control from the late sixteenth century. See ‘Ecclesiastical justice in Wiltshire’, chapter on sexual offences, and ‘The reform of popular culture?’. Houlbrooke, however, finds that for the diocese of Norwich, there is little evidence of cohabitation before the church ceremony. See ‘The making of marriage in mid-Tudor England’, 344–6.Google Scholar

69 C.C.A.L., MS. X/10/12, fos. 268–270^V (1556).

70 Ibid., MS. X/10/6, fos. 234–234^V, Selherst versus Porte (1558–1559).

71 Also Ingram, ‘Ecclesiastical justice in Wiltshire’, chapter on sexual offences.

72 See e.g. C.C.A.L., MS. X/10/9, fos. 21–2, Tritton versus Saunder (1563).

73 Sharpe, J. A., ‘Litigation and human relations in early modern England: ecclesiastical defamation suits at York’, 6–17, in Law and human relations, Past &Present Conference Papers (1980).Google Scholar

74 Butcher, ‘The honest and the lewd’.

75 A recent discussion of childbirth rituals and the collective culture of women can be found in an essay by Wilson, A., ‘The ceremony of childbirth and its interpretation’, in Valerie, Fildes ed., Women as mothers in pre-industrial England (London, 1990), 68–107Google Scholar. Crawford's, P. work in that collection, on ‘The construction and experience of maternity in seventeenth-century England’, 3–38Google Scholar, explores the female lore of that culture and women's exchange of support and advice during motherhood. At least up till the mid-seventeenth century childbirth attendants were usually exclusively female.

76 C.C.A.L., MS. X/10/12, fos. 172^r–172^v, Egglestone versus Cullembyne (1565).

77 Ibid., MS. X/10/11, fos. 13^V, 16^r–16^v, Spritewell versus Howe (1568).

78 Ibid., MS. X/10/12, fos. 185^V–187^V, Culpepper versus Mantle (1565).