Inclou bibliografia i índex.

Contents: Margarida Duraes/Antoinette Fauve-Chamoux/Llorenc Ferrer Alos/Jan Kok: Introduction: Historicizing Well-Being from a Gender Perspective - Marie-Pierre Arrizabalaga: Marriage Strategies and Well-Being among 19th Century Basque Property Owners - Emilia Lagido: Consanguineous Marriages as a Strategy of Well-Being. An Example from 19th Century Alto Minho - Isabel dos Guimaraes Sa: Cousin Marriage and Well-Being among the Portuguese Royal Family during the 15th and 16th Centuries - Constanta Vintila-Ghitulescu: Marriage Strategies, Women's Dowries and Conflicts between Relatives in Romanian Society (18th Century) - Norberta Amorim/Carlota Santos: Marriage Strategies in Azorean Communities of Pico Island (19th Century). Differentiated Female Behaviour in Choosing a Lifelong Partner - Beatrice Craig: When Generation Trumped Sex. Widow's Well-Being and the Transmission of Family Business in 19th Century Northern France - Margarida Duraes: Providing Well-Being to Women through Inheritance and Succession. Portugal in the 18th and 19th Centuries - Beatrice Moring: Men, Women and Property in Finland and Sweden in the 18th and 19th Centuries - Llorenc Ferrer Alos: Achieving Well-Being in Spain through the Single Heir System (18th-19th Centuries) - Richard Paping: Gender and the Intergenerational Transfer of Property and Social Position in the 18th and early 19th Century Northern Dutch Countryside - Kari Telste: Children Born out of Wedlock. Legal Rights and Social Reforms in Norway from the 17th Century to the Present - Helena Cristina F. Machado: Illegitimate Children and Court Procedures for the Determination of Paternity in Portugal (1893-1966). Gendered and Social Differences on Acceding to Inheritance - Paulo Lopes Matos: Female Life Courses and Property Transmission in the Azorean Periphery (Portugal). The Case of the Island of Sao Jorge in the 19th Century - Ofelia Rey Castelao: Well-Being or Survival? Women's Future and Family Transmission Strategies in North-Western Rural Spain, 18th-19th Centuries - Antoinette Fauve-Chamoux: To Remarry or Not: Well-Being, Female Property and Widowhood in Early-Modern France - Mikolaj Szoltysek: Female Headship, Household Position, and Gendered Well-Being in Peasant Societies. Evidence from the Territories of the Historical Kingdom of Poland (18th Century) - Solvi Sogner: Gender, Well-Being, and Old Age for Persons without a Life-Companion. A Rural Case Study around the Turn of the Century 1900. Rendalen, Norway - Mary Louise Nagata: Provisions for Care and Neighborhood Funds in Early Modern Kyoto.

What does well-being mean when we talk about men and women in the past? Their sheer chances of survival, their protection from want, their social status, their individual agency and their self-esteem were all strongly mediated by the family, the predominant social institution. Family laws and customs of family formation created differences between insiders and outsiders in terms of well-being. Within families, there were strong differences in autonomy, status and freedom between the genders and generations. The book offers a fascinating exploration of gender differences in well-being in many regions of historic Europe, with some comparative perspectives. It explores how historic family systems differed with respect to choosing a marriage partner, transmitting property, living and care conditions of widows and widowers and the position of children born out of wedlock.