Population of the Desne-Rujnica parish in the first half of the 19th century

Abstract

Based on the registry books of the Desne-Rujnica parish, this article analyses the various components of natural demographic processes, as well as issues related to marriages and births (seasonal variations in weddings, conceptions, and births, second marriages, extramarital children, and so on) during the second quarter of the 19th century. In the Desne-Rujnica parish, most weddings took place in November, with the “wedding season” spanning over the entire autumn, from September to January and February, with the exception of the Advent period. The time between marriage and the conception of the first child was usually around ten months, whereby this period became longer with the following children. Regularities can be observed on a yearly basis. The fewest conceptions are registered in October, with a “break” that lasted throughout the autumn months. This pattern of the maximum or minimum number of conceptions and births reflects a sort of calculations concerning the child’s birth date. A link between weddings and family (births) are households, which have been analysed on the basis of the population size and structure in the Desne-Rujnica parish in 1802. The relationship between the number of children and elderly indicates the pre-transitional character of the parish as a whole, as well as its individual settlements. All analysed parameters show that the process of demographic transition had already started by the second quarter of the 19th century, its features being very similar to those in the period from 1870-1880. A series of changes observed between the second quarter of the 19th century and the 1870s (the age of married women, a diminished number of weddings during the Advent period, the number of extramarital children and widows entering a second marriage) indicates a sort of “traditionalization” of this area towards the end of the century.