1. Objectifs

Intentions :
- « In this paper, I do not suggest that stepfamilies were more or less fractious or litigious than others. I do intend, however, to ask under what circumstances remarriage led to family disputes, and particularly to family disputes serious enough to require recourse to the civil courts. Such disputes, moreover, provide a window through which to observe the sometimes very tangled legal ramifications of remarriage and stepfamily formation in nineteenth-century Quebec. » (p. 82)
- « (...) the focus here is squarely on the civil courts and how they were used to sort out differences stemming, at least in part, from remarriage and the creation of « step » relationships. » (p. 83)

Questions/Hypothèses :
« Although there is no way of judging how representative they are, these few cases provide evidence that remarriage could and did complicate family dynamics in several important ways. » (p. 83)

2. Méthode

Échantillon/Matériau :
« This study is based on a small collection of cases heard before the civil courts of Lower Canada and Quebec between 1841 and 1890 and reported in the legal press. » (p. 82)

Type de traitement des données :
Analyse de contenu

3. Résumé

« Academic interest in the dynamics of reconstituted family -those including at least one remarried partner with a child or children from the previous relationship- has increased in recent years. Many social scientists have turned their attention to what is generally described as a new type of domestic group. This is because of the great numbers of such families which have been formed since the 1960s, as so many divorced parents have remarried. But due to a different set of demographic conditions, remarriage and the formation of reconstituted families - or stepfamilies, as I will call them here were common in the nineteenth-century. » (p. 80) « This paper is abour domestic conflict in what are today usually called ’reconstituted’ families. More specifically, it is about such conflict in so far as it is revealed in the legal press and especially the judicial archives of nineteenth-century Quebec. The study is intended primarily to identify the areas of conflict which brought such families before the courts. The focus on litigation will also help to underline some of the complex ramifications of remarriage underline some of the complex ramifications of remarriage under Quebec’s civil law. » (p. 79)