Contrôle religieux, contrôle social: la fécondité dans l'Est de la Belgique dans la seconde moitié du XIX siècle

• Autores: Michel Oris, Muriel Neven
• Localización: Annales de démographie historique, ISSN 0066-2062, Nº 2, 2003 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Religions et pratiques familiales), págs. 5-32
• Idioma: francés
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• Resumen

  • This paper aims to contrast the fertility of a Catholic rural area (Pays de Herve) and of a working centre, secularised and with leftwing tendencies (Tilleur). It pays attention both to the pre-transitional period and to the beginning of the transition. The opposition between these two societies, located in Eastern Belgium, is analysed from three points of view. First, we describe their economical and social history. Second, we observe marriages during the closed periods, illegitimate births and pre-marital conceptions, all those measures being considered as indicators of social control and religiousness. Third, using the methods of event history analysis, we compare the fertility patterns of those areas, and observe changes occurring between the pre-transitional period and the beginning of the fertility decline.

    Results indicate important contrasts: the persistence of traditional social controls characterized the Pays de Herve, while the urban centre rather broke the links with them. Yet, the beginning of the transition did nor appear as a revolution. Among those very different populations, fertility strategies centred on the number of desired children and on their sex composition, existed before the transition. Those cultural rationalities increased when birth control appeared: in this way, the fertility decline is in keeping with the family culture, and does not appear, at first, as a radical change.