ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to explore the complexity by closely observing a group of families in eighteenth-century Toulouse and the surrounding countryside. The social position and the gender of the remarrying parent were fundamental parameters of the process and play significant roles in defining the nature of stepfamily relationships. Ethnological methodologies seemed more suited to the type of relationship analysis at the heart of the project. Demographers and social historians are familiar with the shortcomings of the types of sources, which do not always contain all the required information such as age, occupation, residence, and specific family ties between participants. Moreover, remarriage introduces complex language issues in sources when one tries to identify stepfamily relationships. In the large multigenerational households around Toulouse, all relationships could be affected in the process of reconstructing a family unit through remarriage, including the bonds between mothers and fathers and their own children.
