`All masters discourage the marrying of their male servants, and admit not by any means the marriage of the female': Domestic Service and Celibacy in Western Europe from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century

Sarti, Raffaella

doi:10.1177/0265691408091467

Cited by 6 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…The constitution of 1795, furthermore, began a tendency to merge the identity of the citizen with that of the head of the family 12 ; later the Napoleonic Civil Code (1804) would equate citizens worthy of the name with the father who owned property (Mulliez 1990). This may have represented a further attack on servants' masculinity, given their often low wages and the difficulties they could face when they wanted to marry without leaving service (Sarti 2008).…”

Section: The (Historical) Background Of Servants' De-virilizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fighting for Masculinity: Male Domestic Workers, Gender, and Migration in Italy from the Late Nineteenth Century to the Present

Sarti

2010

Men and Masculinities

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This article, after providing readers with a short review of studies on male domestic workers, focuses on male domestics in the twentieth- and twenty-first-century Italy via both a qualitative and quantitative approach. It shows, among other things, that in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, male domestic workers underwent a symbolic castration in that they were prevented from growing moustaches which at the time were a sign of virility. Significantly, this prohibition provoked several protests. The article, therefore, investigates the historical background of servant de-virilization. It shows furthermore how domestic service became an almost exclusively female job and was culturally constructed as such. Broadly speaking, this happened in the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century. In Italy, however, between the 1950s and the 1980s, domestic service experienced a slight re-masculinization which became more noticeable in the following years, when there was a kind of ‘‘revival’’ of recourse to domestic workers made possible by the arrival of large migration flows. While investigating how domestics perceive/perceived themselves and which strategies they pursue/ pursued to protect their male identity both a century ago and today, the article analyzes how working in a feminized sector may affect masculinity

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Section: The (Historical) Background Of Servants' De-virilizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fighting for Masculinity: Male Domestic Workers, Gender, and Migration in Italy from the Late Nineteenth Century to the Present

Sarti

2010

Men and Masculinities

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“…¿Qué decir de los criados? Mientras se dispone de un copioso volumen de investigaciones sobre el servicio doméstico urbano en Italia (Sarti, 2007;Sarti 2008, con aporte bibliográfico), son pocos los estudios relativos al ámbito rural y la información es bastante dispersa. Por tanto, en las páginas siguientes me centraré en el caso italiano para evaluar -con datos conocidos, pero también con nuevos-si el life-cycle service llegó o no a expandirse en las áreas rurales y si es posible confirmar (alguna de) las "geografías" antes aludidas 14 .…”

Section: Estudios Clásicos Y Geografías Imprecisasunclassified

Criados rurales: el caso de Italia desde una perspectiva comparada (siglos XVI al XX)

Sarti

2017

Mundo agrar.

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Criados ruralesCriados agrícolas life-cycle service Italia Europa Trabajo domésticoSiglos XVI-XX RESUMENCon las ideas que reconocidos expertos han expuesto acerca del presunto perfil de los criados rurales italianos como punto de partida, este artículo da cuenta de la significación y las características de este colectivo, al tiempo que entra en contradicción con aquellas. Si bien el porcentaje de sirvientes en la población rural difiere en función de la época y el lugar considerados, este fue en algunos casos tan elevado como en diversas áreas del centro y norte de Europa. En varias zonas de Italia en las que el número de criados rurales fue relevante, también fueron comunes las familias complejas; un hecho que cuestiona el vínculo establecido entre el life-cycle service y la neolocalidad. Asimismo, y aun cuando en aquellas mismas zonas el acceso al matrimonio fue más bien bastante tardío, no hay indicios de que en gran parte de Italia (exceptuando Cerdeña y algunas partes del antiguo Tirol austríaco, hoy bajo dominio italiano) haya existido una vinculación entre la presencia de life-cycle servants y el matrimonio tardío. Aunque es preciso examinar la cuestión con más detalle, el modelo que parece imponerse en Italia implicaba que los jóvenes comenzaran muy pronto a trabajar como criados agrícolas y dejaran de serlo antes de los 20 años; por tanto, mucho antes de casarse. La principal razón por la que dejaban su hogar para servir no era tanto acumular recursos con miras al matrimonio cuanto aliviar las cargas familiares. Las implicaciones teóricas de estos resultados son también aquí objeto de discusión.

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“…In several parts of Europe, the position of servants and apprentices was strictly intertwined with singleness, as Sarti has shown. 46 In many German guilds, the corporate status of men was directly related to their marital status, as journeymen were required to be single, and master craftsmanship was reserved for married men. 47 Single barber-surgeons in early modern Turin, in contrast, had no fewer prospects than married men, were able to manage shops, and often fulfilled important functions of leadership.…”

Section: The Lure Of Urban Institutionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Introduction. Unmarried and Unknown

Devos

Schmidt

Groot

2015

Journal of Urban History

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This essay introduces a special issue on The Lure of the City that examines the attraction of towns to unmarried men and women in the Low Countries during the early modern period and the nineteenth century. The issue has the relation between singles and cities as its main focus. Singles were present in disproportionately large numbers in urban areas, but the question is why? This essay sets out the historiographical framework for the contributions in the issue, discusses the sources and methodologies used, and provides a brief overview of the evolution of singleness in the Low Countries. The contributions all demonstrate the relevance of a comparative approach. It is revealed that towns and cities not only attracted but also created singles, that they offered different opportunities for different groups of unmarried people and that they affected men and women differently. Finally, it appears that not every town and city was attractive to men and women without a spouse.

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`All masters discourage the marrying of their male servants, and admit not by any means the marriage of the female': Domestic Service and Celibacy in Western Europe from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century

Cited by 6 publications

References 12 publications

Fighting for Masculinity: Male Domestic Workers, Gender, and Migration in Italy from the Late Nineteenth Century to the Present

Fighting for Masculinity: Male Domestic Workers, Gender, and Migration in Italy from the Late Nineteenth Century to the Present

Criados rurales: el caso de Italia desde una perspectiva comparada (siglos XVI al XX)

Introduction. Unmarried and Unknown

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