Pre-WWII Italy And America

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gentilejoy@yahoo.com
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Pre-WWII Italy And America

Post by gentilejoy@yahoo.com »

Two things I encountered in my Italian family roots research that I’d like to share:

1) A woman who went thru child birth labor was at a dangerous risk of losing her life.

2) A married man, generally under 50 years old, whose wife passed away, would remarry in order to have another wife rear his children and/or to have more children. Losing a wife, put a tremendous burden on a man with children. He had to find work (most of which) was hard manual labor. Many times, work took a man far away from his home. Because of this it was not uncommon that men remarried, and these second wives reared step children, and bore any other future children.
erudita74
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Re: Pre-WWII Italy And America

Post by erudita74 »

gentilejoy@yahoo.com wrote:Two things I encountered in my Italian family roots research that I’d like to share:

1) A woman who went thru child birth labor was at a dangerous risk of losing her life.

2) A married man, generally under 50 years old, whose wife passed away, would remarry in order to have another wife rear his children and/or to have more children. Losing a wife, put a tremendous burden on a man with children. He had to find work (most of which) was hard manual labor. Many times, work took a man far away from his home. Because of this it was not uncommon that men remarried, and these second wives reared step children, and bore any other future children.
Hi Joy
Just to add to what you wrote in #2 above-

In the 1800s in Italy, a man who was widowed and left with minor children did not always have to remarry because of his children. One factor that had to do with whether or not he remarried was the type of household in which he had lived with his deceased wife. If the household was comprised of his parents, his male siblings plus their wives, and his own unmarried female siblings, then he already had at his disposal female relatives who could tend to his now motherless children. He did not have the pressure to remarry, as did a man who had set up his own household upon marriage.

Erudita
gentilejoy@yahoo.com
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Re: Pre-WWII Italy And America

Post by gentilejoy@yahoo.com »

@Erudita- very interesting, and this makes a lot of sense that if a man had extended family members to back him up or support with rearing any children after a spouse passed away. My great aunt was about 21 when she married a widower of 39. He had a 10 year old son from the previous marriage. Later my great aunt had a daughter from this marriage. :)
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