The Changing Strength of Siblings

Abstract

The present work analyses fraternal relationships among Spanish naval officers during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The main aim of the article is to understand the important role played by siblings and the changes undergone by fraternal links over time. In order to do this, the article addresses three objectives: characterizing fraternal ties in the Spanish naval officer corps, analyzing fraternal relationships in relation to other family links and to the officer corps’ professional context, and exploring how siblinghood transformed during these two centuries. The main source of information used in this work is the testaments signed by naval officers in Spanish navy bases. The article is divided into two parts, dealing with quantitative and qualitative issues, respectively. The first part examines the proportion of naval officers who had siblings, while the second part studies the kind of relationship that existed between them; three kinds of relationship are proposed: vertical ties, horizontal links, and secondary relationships.