Investigar la soledad. Mujeres solas, casa y trayectorias sociales en la Castilla rural del Antiguo Régimen

Abstract

It is through studying female society within the household that this article considers the necesity of research in the social dimension of the demographic facts, taking into account the qualitative research in the changing methodology paradigm of the population studies.We try to observe widowhood as a reflection of the social system beyond the traditional demographic indicators. The methodology goes between the theoretical reflection and the case analysis with representative examples of the rural world in Central-Southern Spain in the eighteenth century. It also has an impact on the relationship between solitude, house and family, from the perspective of vital routes and social trajectories. On one hand, we can prove that society is not an individual manifestation but a condition which shows a structural situation in rural Castile. By the other hand, we can prove that a trivial fact like living alone is related to the social mechanisms linked with the dynamics, reproduction and functioning of the social organization
system.

http://dx.doi.org/10.15304/ohm.24.2738