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How did WWI affect the love lives of ordinary citizens and their interactions as couples? This book focuses on how dramatic changes in living conditions affected key parts of the life course of ordinary citizens: marriage and divorce. Innovative in bringing together demographic and gender perspectives, contributions in this comparative volume draw on newly available micro-level data, as well as qualitative sources such as war diaries. In a first exploration intended to incite further research, it asks how patterns of marriage and divorce were affected by the war across Europe, and what the role of enduring change - or lack thereof - in gender relations was in shaping these patterns.
List of contents
Introduction Part I: Something Old, Something New?: Continuity and Change in Gender Relations 1. "So Absent and So Present": Marriage by Correspondence in France During the Great War 2. The Impact of World War 1 on Marriage, Divorce and Gender Relations in Britain 3. The First World War and Its Impact on Gender Relations: The Polish Case Part II: New Kinds of Couples?: Wartime Upheaval and Persistence in Marriage Patterns Before and After the War 4. From Surviving the War Trenches to Storming the Gender Barricades?: Marriage Patterns in Belgium in the Early 20th Century and the Impact of War on Gender Relations 5. The Impact of WWI on Marriage Patterns in Albania 6. Did the War Break Couples?: Marriage and Divorce in France During and After WWI 7. "It Does Not Stop People from Getting Married": WWI-Related Changes in Nuptiality in the City of Cracow, Poland Part III: Open Borders, Open Minds?: Intercultural Marriages and Alternative Life Choices 8. Uncertainty, Enabling and Radicalization: World War I and Its Impact on Binational and Intercultural Marriages in Germany 9. The Wife and Children of the "Boche": Marriage and Procreation Between Occupiers and Occupied Women in Belgium, 1914-1918 10. From War to Wedding: Marriage Strategies of WWI POWs in the Urals, Russia 11. Female Collaborators and Resisters in Occupied Belgium: Comparative Analysis of Their Social and Family Contexts (1914-1918). Conclusion
About the author
Sandra Brée is an historian and a demographer of the Centre national de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) at the Laboratoire de Recherche Historique Rhône-Alpes (LARHRA) in Lyon, France.
Saskia Hin is a historical demographer affiliated with the KU Leuven Family and Population Studies Group.
Summary
How did WWI affect the love lives of ordinary citizens and their interactions as couples? This edited volume asks how patterns of marriage and divorce were affected by the war across Europe, and what the role of change, or a lack of enduring change, in gender relations was in shaping these patterns.
