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Living alone in nineteenth-century rural Italy: was there any way out?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 November 2017

MATTEO MANFREDINI  and
MARCO BRESCHI
MATTEO MANFREDINI
Affiliation:
Department of Life Sciences, University of Parma.
MARCO BRESCHI
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, University of Sassari.
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Abstract

Few studies have dealt with the issue of people living alone in pretransitional rural populations. Alone by choice or circumstances, usually poor and sometimes stigmatised, solitaries often had a hard life. This article analyses the characteristics and life-histories of people living alone in two rural villages in nineteenth-century Italy with the aim of understanding whether and how solitaries managed to find a way out from solitude. The results show that solitaries got married, joined another household, and especially emigrated more than the rest of the population, which is a strong indication of their willingness to break out of solitariness. The individuation of the demographic profile associated with such specific behaviours, namely being male, young, and widowed, allowed us also to draw some hypotheses on the role of availability and quality of social connections on the chances to escape from a solitary condition, as well as on the characteristics of migratory flows of solitaries from the countryside to the cities.

Vivre seul dans l'italie rurale du xixe siècle: pouvait-on en sortir?

Le destin des individus vivant seuls, au sein des populations rurales antérieures à la transition, a suscité peu de recherches. Qu'ils soient seuls par choix ou du fait des circonstances, le plus souvent pauvres et parfois stigmatisés, les solitaires ont souvent eu une vie difficile. Cet article analyse les caractéristiques et les histoires de vie de personnes vivant seules dans deux villages d'Italie rurale au XIXe siècle. Il s'agit de comprendre si les solitaires ont réussi à trouver un moyen de sortir de la solitude et si oui comment. Les résultats montrent que les solitaires se sont mariés, ont rejoint un autre ménage, et surtout ont émigré plus que le reste de la population, ce qui est une forte indication de leur volonté d’échapper à leur solitude. A travers notre étude, le profil démographique clairement associé à ces comportements spécifiques est celui d'un individu de sexe masculin, jeune et veuf, ce qui nous a permis d'en tirer quelque hypothèse d'une part sur le rôle que peuvent jouer la disponibilité et la qualité des liens sociaux dans les chances, pour un individu isolé, d’échapper à sa condition de solitaire, et d'autre part sur les caractéristiques des flux migratoires de solitaires quittant la campagne pour les villes.

Alleine leben im ländlichen italien des 19. jahrhunderts: gab es irgendeinen ausweg?

Nur wenige Studien haben sich mit der Frage alleinlebender Personen in prätransitionalen ländlichen Bevölkerungen befasst. Absichtlich oder umstandsbedingt allein, gewöhnlich arm und manchmal stigmatisiert, führten Alleinwohnende oft ein hartes Leben. Dieser Beitrag untersucht die spezifischen Merkmale und Lebensläufe alleinlebender Leute in zwei ländlichen Dörfern in Italien im 19. Jahrhundert und zielt darauf ab herauszufinden, ob und wie es Alleinlebenden gelang, einen Weg aus der Einsamkeit zu finden. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass Alleinstehende öfter als die übrige Bevölkerung heirateten, in andere Haushalte eintraten und vor allem auswanderten, was ein deutliches Anzeichen für ihren Wunsch ist, aus der Abgeschiedenheit auszubrechen. Der individuelle Zuschnitt des demographischen Profils, das mit den entsprechenden Verhaltensweisen verbunden ist, nämlich männlich, jung und verwitwet zu sein, erlaubt es uns auch, einige Hypothesen darüber aufzustellen, welche Bedeutung dem Umfang und der Qualität der sozialen Verbindungen für die Chancen zukam, einer Einsamkeitslage zu entkommen, und welche Merkmale die Migrationsströme der Alleinlebenden vom Land in die Städte aufwiesen.

Type
Research Article
Information
Continuity and Change , Volume 32 , Issue 3 , December 2017 , pp. 411 - 435
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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References

ENDNOTES

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