Creating a Household in the Early Modern Period

In the early modern period in Europe, things began to change for the middle class. One of the more interesting changes was how new couples would provide for their own household. Instead of choosing to live with one of the sets of parents, the newly betrothed couple would work to make enough money to have their own household. This is interesting to me because this is kind of the way things are in today’s society. A couple who is engaged pretty much does anything to be able to not live with a set of parents. It is likely that couples in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries had similar feelings as couples today that they want their own independence from their parents. Another interesting facet to the creation of a new household, is where the man and woman get the money from. A boy would usually get sent off as an apprentice to learn a trade and eventually take over a shop or have his own. On the other hand, a girl would usually get sent off to work as a domestic servant in a wealthier house so that she could earn money for her own dowry, which would help the couple set up a household of their own. I think the woman providing her own dowry is interesting because before it was always the fathers responsibility to provide this, and it shows the move of children becoming more independent from their parents. Overall, I think this change was necessary and important because it helped children and young adults not be dependent on their families and we still use this idea of providing for oneself today.