Families in Colonial Bristol, Rhode Island: An Exercise in Historical Demography

Abstract

N _o aspect of early American history has been more badly served by unsystematic, impressionistic methods of handling source materials than the whole vast area of family life. Our understanding of the subject has begun from a set of assumptions sustained chiefly by the force of a venerable popular folklore. Many of them can be tested in quite simple numerical terms, yet only very recently has the effort to do so even been started. Perhaps the best way to illustrate the seriousness of the situation is to list some of the most prominent of these assumptions, together with the verdict that present and future research seems likely to render upon them: (i) The colonial family was, initially at least, extended rather than nuclear. (This is almost certainly false.) (2) The normal age of marriage was extremely early by our own standards. (Wrong again.) (3) The average number of children per family was very high. (True, but with some qualifications.) (4) Life expectancy was generally quite low, though a few people who managed to escape the manifold hazards of the day survived to a prodigiously old age. (Largely false.) (5) The mortality rate for infants, and for mothers in childbirth, was particularly high. (Much exaggerated.) (6) Many men and women were married two or more times, owing to the death of their first spouses. (Somewhat exaggerated.)'