The invisibility of Portuguese stepfamilies: the relationships between stepparents, stepchildren and half-siblings in eighteenth and nineteenth century Porto

Abstract

ABSTRACT Stepfamily relationships in eighteenth – and nineteenth-century Portugal are often invisible because of the mobility of the population. Widows and widowers did not hesitate to remarry and create blended households of first and second marriage beds even though this option was criticized by Catholic clergy and targeted by legislation penalizing widows. Portuguese legislation was harsh on stepfathers as they were considered the ‘enemies of orphans’ whereas stepmothers were allowed by the authorities to have the guardianship of stepchildren after the death of the biological father. However, in practice, stepchildren and half-siblings were separated from the rest of the stepfamily by exit through marriage, entry into convents, or emigration at some point in the life cycle of the household and, thus, these step-relationships became invisible except through property transactions and inheritance at moments of death. This article considers the roles of stepparents, stepchildren and half-siblings within these newly formed families and if illegitimate children were also accepted into a family alongside legitimate half–siblings. The evidence for stepfamily patterns in Portugal has been collected from case studies within a large body of archival research to reconstruct trajectories of the stepfamilies as they can be traced in petitions, judicial and notarial records, inheritance procedures, marriage contracts, last wills and parish records. Through these sources we can build an idea of the kinds of relationships that stepparents, stepchildren and half-siblings created within these blended families in Portugal in the 1700s and 1800s.