ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the broad circumstances that gave rise to stepfamilies in the past and examines their implications. The frequency of stepfamilies in the past depended upon variables whose number and relative significance not only varied by region and class but also shifted over time. Circumstances that favored the possibility of satisfying these conditions thus increased the incidence of stepfamilies. An important implication of this marital economy was that the death of either spouse had a devastating economic effect, apart from any social and emotional impact. The rapidity of remarriage in many preindustrial societies has often drawn the attention of historians. Stepfamilies in preindustrial Europe were, then, generally a result of the socio-economic and demographic regime within which the family household was the basic economic unit, to which marriage was fundamental, and where high rates of mortality prevailed. The experience of stepfamilies in the past is difficult to recapture.
