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Maria Marta Lobo de Araujo y Alexandra Esteves, The Dowry System in Rural Mediterranean Europe. A Case Study of Peasant Families in Minho, Portugal, Lewiston (NY, USA)-Lampeter (UK), The Edwin Mellen Press, 2018, 239 p., ISBN: 978-1-4955-0668-0

2020; University of Coimbra; Volume: 51; Linguagem: Inglês

10.14195/0870-4147_51_16

2183-3796

Francisco Javier Moreno Díaz del Campo,

Intergenerational Family Dynamics and Caregiving

a long standing connection with the north of Portugal and a wealth of knowledge on the region's history.Both researchers are doctors by the University of Minho, where the former is today a Professor, whilst the latter lectures at Instituto Politécnico de Viana do Castelo and Universidad Católica de Braga.A cursory look at the authors' career journeys, research projects and publications bears witness to their in-depth knowledge of both the Minho region and the topic they develop in this book.Bearing this in mind, it is not surprising that their collossal study of archival sources has resulted in a seminal work on the social history of peasant communities in Mediterranean Europe, specifically in the Iberian peninsula.Araujo and Esteves' work focuses on dowry contracts undertaken by peasant families in Portugal's Minho district during the eighteenth century.Their research is based on a detailed qualitative and quantitative analysis of over three-hundred contracts from six districts in the area, drawn from a thorough trawl of the archives and backed by a solid and wide-ranging bibliography.Its aims were: 1) to understand the mechanisms of wealth transmission through marriage related legal institutions; and 2) to analyse social relationships in family and neighbourhood networks in the Mediterranean rural context.The book has an introduction by Professor Ofelia Rey Castelao of the neighbouring Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, Spain, and is divided into chapters.Chapter 1 introduces the Minho area and the topic under discussion, providing background information on this small but diverse region where the population was widely dispersed and overwhelmingly rural, with Braga as the sole town of any size.Having described the region's natural and economic resources, the authors focus on its main demographic and social features, namely high population density and widespread emigration.Although the area's power structures were occupied by the nobility and the clergy, the large majority of the population were farmers who occasionally supplemented their income with part-time employment.The authors then describe the Minho family structure, as well as the nature and distinctive features of their smallholdings.The chapter closes with a discussion of the marriage institution and the processes leading up to it, including its legal framework, constraints and potential issues, family intervention, marital commitments etc. Special attention