ABSTRACT
The results of these events on family life were profound. As the period progressed, the implication is that fewer and fewer men would have been undertaking agricultural activities on their own behalf. Instead of generating agricultural produce, then consuming, bartering or selling it, their role would have been to undertake labour for another in exchange for wages, often on a daily basis. In a rural context, this would have been a large farmer or estate owner. This shifted economic power across the life course. As we have already seen, landowners tended to have the greatest resources towards the middle of their life course, but landless labourers were at their peak of earning power in young manhood. What is more, the landless had no incentive to postpone marriage until they had acquired sufficient resources to establish a viable household through savings and inheritance. This has been seen as weaken ing the links between generations, as the economic significance and control of parents lessened. Furthermore, younger generations would now have had every incentive to marry early and have as many children as possible because they were a potential source of income. Thus, the collapse of the systems of life cycle service, and the fall in mean ages at marriage which occurred towards the end of our period, can be seen as direct consequences of proletarianization and can be argued to amount to a fundamental change in the demographic pattern of English society.
