Comparison With The City And Particularities

COMPARISON WITH THE CITY AND PARTICULARITIES According to what has been said so far, the demographic character has manifested a series of particular behaviors that differentiate the rural and urban frameworks. Thus, we have that the reality of the illegitimate in the society of La Vega is part of certain peculiarities that give it a differentiated character from that of La Ciudad and that can help us understand the way of life and the daily life of the people of La Vega during the Ancien Régime. First, we must compare the volume and evolution of illegitimate births in both La Vega and La Ciudad. To do this, we will use the existing counts for the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Las Palmas. In the first place, it should be noted that births have changed differently due to the uneven number of inhabitants. The volume of population is very favorable to La Ciudad, which causes an evident superiority in its counts. The same goes for the illegitimate rate, which is much higher in Las Palmas. The reasons for the greater presence of children conceived out of wedlock in the city are due to its larger population, its character as a seaport and the relaxation of religious customs within a large society, in which individuals are not as exposed to the social consideration of their neighbours as in a small community. Family ties were less in La Ciudad, and control by the local parish priest was more efficient in a small community like La Vega. To this we must add that Las Palmas, like the rest of the Canary Islands cities, behaves as a focus of attraction for those women who have participated in extramarital relations in their respective places of origin,31 since in them the knowledge of their situation by the neighbors is much easier and dishonorable. We must also consider a number of other factors. Thus, during the Ancien Régime, a wide social spectrum was exposed to famine, plague and war, which recurs inexorably over the centuries. Although the case of La Vega is paradigmatic due to the good state of health that its population seemed to enjoy, with an economic situation based on land that allowed it to mitigate to a large extent the famines of the time; The truth is that no matter how little the economic situation worsened, this was a great handicap for the less privileged social classes, since conceiving a child, supporting it and educating it only on its mother's side became an arduous task. However, we find ourselves with a model of sporadic and poorly planned relationships, in which desire was often greater than any other socioeconomic impediment. But, even if it is a question of sporadic relationships and unwanted or planned pregnancies, the existence of a period of scarcity is not directly responsible for the growth of the birth rate among the illegitimate, what happens is that among the already existing births, the economic situation can be decisive for a man to abandon his partner. but in no way does it increase the number of births, whether legitimate or not. A similar reading can be made for other island attractions. Although in certain areas of the archipelago economic scarcity is linked to a period of boom in illegitimate conceptions, it should be noted that precisely in the areas with the best economic situation, especially the cities, the prosperity of commercial activity led to the arrival of foreign contingents, including peasant women from rural areas who would go on to serve as domestic workers and, Therefore, they will be susceptible to the amorous dalliances of their employers. If we look at the seasonality of the conceptions of the illegitimates of La Vega, we see that there is a great similarity in terms of the periods in which they increase in La Ciudad. We also note the existence of a certain stability throughout the year, although the months with the predominance of the number of births are February, March, April and October. From this we can deduce that the conceptions in both Santa Brígida and Las Palmas also take place permanently throughout the year, although there is a slight increase in the months of May, June and July. Thus, the trend observed in other areas32 is maintained, reflecting an increase in conceptions during the summer season, while a reduction is observed in the months of November and December. The causes of this type of oscillation are mainly due to religious precepts, since it is not until after March that an increase in extramarital relations is perceived, which also has to do with the psychological fact of the end of the period of restriction; while in the months of December, February and March, religious guidelines seem to encourage celibacy. To this must be added the improvement of the weather in summer and the psychological factor that this entails when establishing relationships with other people. And, finally, we must also point out the influence of the end of the productive period, with the harvest, since this implies the arrival of massive labor to participate in agricultural work, which means a greater contingent of available women. The births of illegitimate children in La Vega do not coincide with the same moments of economic scarcity as in La Ciudad. This would indicate, in part, that the causes that motivate the birth of illegitimate persons are not the same. Thus, while in Las Palmas there is an increase in the volume of illegitimate people in times of crisis, in La Vega this is not the case. What is the explanation for this particular demographic behavior? In Las Palmas, the economic pressure of the various periods of famine, famines, crop failures, epidemics, etc., are shown as elements that encourage the appearance of a greater number of illegitimate people. However, in La Vega, we are witnessing a completely different phenomenon: it is in the most economically difficult times – always taking into account the less significant nature of the hardships in La Vega – that conceptions of illegitimate children are least detected. This indicates that both the illegitimate and the rest of the neonates are influenced by moments of adverse economic conjunctures, but far from being a stimulus, these moments act as inhibitors of births. With this we conclude that extramarital relations are currently paralyzed, which could mean that they are located among the humblest layers of the population, since these are the groups most exposed to the different hardships. However, the documentation also shows the existence of extramarital relations of people of high social status. Although this is the case, those who are left in charge of the children in La Vega are the women, who, according to the sources and documentation, in the best of cases have the same social status as the men with whom they interact, and in many cases it is lower. It should be recalled that there is a high number of slave mothers among their mothers. This will lead to the precarious situation of the child. Thus, once born, they can sometimes choose to abandon it or expose it if they are in a moment of economic hardship. Finally, unlike in La Ciudad, there is no coincidence between the creation of the foundling cradle in the San Martín Hospital and the decrease in the number of illegitimate children. On the contrary, the volume of these continued to grow throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and the presence of a nursery where unwanted children could be deposited did not stop the volume of their appearance.