1. Objectifs

Intentions :
«By exploring the social history of culture in the rural parish of St-Joseph de Beauce during the period 1736-1901, with emphasis on the post-1850 period, this dissertation reinterprets prevailing arguments about the Church’s purported hegemony over the rural French-Canadian majority.» (p. iii)

2. Méthode

Échantillon/Matériau :
«To explore the interrelated factors in the encounter between Catholicism and Québec popular culture, this microhistorical study draws upon the curés’ detailed annual reports to the Archbishop of Québec, St-Joseph’s parish registers, contemporary accounts, government censuses, and other statistical data.» (p. iii)

Type de traitement des données :
Analyse de contenu
Réflexion critique

3. Résumé

L’auteur aborde la place de la religion dans les familles de St-Joseph de Beauce en mettant l’accent sur les habitudes entourant la sexualité et le mariage. Results show that «[t]he vast majority [90%] of first conceptions after marriage took place at least ten months after the ceremony, and in some cases up to two years afterwards. […] In St-Joseph, the number of births occurring less than eight months after marriage were extremely low in the last half of the nineteenth century, a mere thirteen in thirty years. […] This would indicate that most people’s sexual behaviour, at least in so far as unwanted pregnancies were concerned, stayed within the norms prescribed by the Church. But, when we take into consideration the repeated clerical complaints about the unsupervised assemblies of their young parishioners, or their long courtships, such figures tell us nothing about the variety of ways that people might have expressed their sexuality. In addition to the clergy’s moral concerns, it is likely that families in the community had various practical reasons of their own for limiting sexual expression in their offspring. These included prevention of unwanted pregnancies, unsuitable marriages, and the potential unsuitability of an unwed mother in the local marriage pool.» (p. 255)