A posição familiar dos jovens no século XVIII

This article intends to contribute towards a renewed approach to the social roles of the young in societies of the past, via analysis of the residential conditions of unmarried children within a municipality in the Lisbon hinterland between 1738 and 1811. Using diverse methodological angles - from biographies of domestic groups to the statistic interpretation of individual behaviour - I focus upon the residential circumstances of single chi!dren, following the life-courses of these youths within their respective families, the timing of their permanence within or departure from the paternal home, and - in the latter case - the precise moment at which the act of leaving home took place.
Based on these images of the dwelling characteristics of tmmarried children, I attempt to discriminate the motives that dictated such patterns of behaviour. Among these, we can point with particular clarity to the role played by different forms of these, we can point with particular clarity to the role played by different forms of economy and organization within the domestic group, reflected in the distinctly centripetal effects of the family upon its descendants.