ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of the various ways in which the reproductive regime that is nuptiality and marital fertility, has been influenced by material living conditions, strategies of property transmission, types of rural economies, and by the penetration of the “nouvelle civilité chrétienne” and subsequent secularization. It explores the basis of the triangle that is the connections between living conditions and the politics of moral patronage. Readiness and willingness jointly depend on the prevailing mode of production. The Revolution of 1789 and the period till the Concordat of 1801 with Rome is of major significance in the history of secularization in France. The detection of the intricacies seems to be served better by the detailed historical analysis of economic, political and social contexts than by the repeated application of the same, a priori defined and overly standardized microeconomic theory.
