"Everyone's been good to me, especially the dogs": foster-children and young paupers in nineteenth-century Southern Iceland.

Introduction

Parent-child relations in the European past have attracted considerable academic interest since the 1960s. During the 1970s and early 1980s historical research into the subject was largely concerned with questions relating to attitudes towards children and the treatment of children in former times.(1) During the 1970s and 1980s various scholars explored other issues closely related to the history of childhood. Thus, during the 1970s Peter Laslett published on parental deprivation in the English past, to mention but one example.(2) Judging by the relative scarcity of publications on orphans and stepparenthood during the late 1970s and early 1980s, the subject he raised does not seem to have attracted much attention internationally.(3) This changed during the latter part of the 1980s when historians increasingly began to address problems such as child abandonment, the position of orphans and relations between stepparents and stepchildren in the past.(4)

John Boswell has directed some attention to child abandonment in medieval Iceland,(5) whereas hardly anything has been written on the subject of child abandonment, fostering and orphans in the country during the early modern and modern periods. This is somewhat surprising since during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries a considerable percentage of households in the country included children other than offspring of the head of household. An investigation into family and household structures in seven Icelandic parishes between 1801 and 1816 revealed that the proportion of foster-children ranged between 2.5 per cent and 18.3 per cent of all children residing in the individual parishes.(6)

The position of foster-children within the family in nineteenth-century Iceland is liable to have varied considerably.(7) Hypothetically it has been argued that some of them probably had the same, or a similar, status within the family as blood descendants of the couple heading it. Other may have been "private paupers" of the family, i.e. children who resided with the family (for various reasons) for a certain period of time, without the commune or their parents (or other relatives) paying for their maintenance.(8)

The ambition here is to shed some light on the question why children were fostered by persons other than their parents in nineteenth-century Iceland. By analyzing sources such as censuses, parish registers and catechetical registers, I shall attempt to determine the relative number of foster-children in the county of Arnessysla in southern Iceland and the percentage of households including such members. Furthermore, by investigating two groups of foster-children randomly chosen from the censuses of 1845 and 1870, I shall try to establish whether or not there were kinship ties between foster-children and the families to which they belonged. Finally, I shall discuss the plausible position of foster-children as compared with the position of young paupers in Icelandic households during the nineteenth century.

Problems of a Definition

The Icelandic censuses list two different categories of children and youth other than offspring of heads of households and hired servants: paupers and foster-children. Paupers are a well defined category and do not pose a problem when dealing with Icelandic household structure in the past. The same does not apply to foster-children. In the census of 1801 occupational and household status of each individual is recorded in Danish, while Icelandic is most often used in subsequent censuses.(9) Even if more than one term is used to designate foster-children (fosterbarn, opfostringsbarn, plejebarn) in the 1801 census, these hardly allow for different interpretations. The same cannot be said about later censuses compiled in Icelandic. These list two categories of "foster-children": fosturborn and tokuborn. There is a definite qualitative difference between the use of these terms in modern Icelandic. The first, which may be translated into English with the term foster-children, indicates a better household status than the latter, which implies that the children in question were "taken in" by household heads, without--or with less--emotional involvement. The census enumerators have, however, not accounted for the use of the terms, nor have statisticians publishing statistical analyses based on the censuses qualified how they use them. It seems that these children have merely been tabulated with other dependents of household heads.

Evidence drawn from the Icelandic Dictionary Institute at the University of Iceland does not help to clarify the problem. It appears that the terms were interchangeable in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century usage. Censuses were usually compiled by parish priests or communal directors (hreppstjori) in each of the more than two hundred communes in the country. Owing to a large number of enumerators working without specific definitions of the terms fosturborn and tokuborn, the terms are likely to have been randomly used. Thus, both terms are, for instance, interchangeably used for children fostered by their grandparents. Furthermore, they are in a few cases alternatively used in catechetical registers to designate the household position of the same child in two different calender years.

Because of this I shall make no distinction between children listed either as fosturborn or tokuborn. The term foster-children will be used here to designate children belonging to both categories.

Fostering and Abandonment in a Historical Perspective

Placing children in a home other than the parental one was a widespread custom in medieval north-western Europe, "which ranged in practice from actual abandonment to merely educating children away from home."(10) The Icelandic Sagas contain numerous examples of "fostering," often involving children being sent to live and be reared in another household as "means of cementing alliances."(11) Boswell points out that the "fosterer" often accepted the position as an honor since among the Scandinavians "there was a general understanding that inferiors 'fostered' the children of superiors, indebting the latter to them in return."(12) In such arrangements foster-children are likely to have enjoyed a reasonably good life: "Some 'foster-parents' were clearly supplements to natal parents, and therefore increased rather than diminished the care extended to children."(13) However, it appears that the customs of fostering varied considerably in Europe, not only culturally and geographically, but also according to class and status.(14) Miller has accounted for several types of fostering arrangements in medieval Iceland, including ones where kin, or unrelated persons, fostered the children of impoverished parents.(15)

During the eighteenth century there is some evidence that members of the Icelandic ruling class, primarily consisting of landowning state officials, entrusted their children (almost exclusively sons) to educated priests for fostering. The period of such fostering was usually rather short, ranging from one to three years, and its main objective was to educate the youth away from home, preparing them for further education.(16) The number of these children was, however, extremely small compared with the number of children being brought up in households, other than the parental ones, as foster-children or paupers. According to the census of 1703, 11 per cent of the age group 0-4 years of age were in this position, and the same applied to 27.2 per cent of the age group 5-9 years of age.(17)

Most authors agree that poverty was the single most important reason for child abandonment in the past.(18) During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries thousands of children were abandoned in Europe, left mainly in foundling homes or poor houses established for their care. During the 1830s around 32,000 infants were abandoned in France each year, around 15,000 in Spain, a similar number in Portugal, while in Italy 35,000 infants were left yearly in foundling homes. In three major Italian cities 374,000 children were abandoned during the period 1800-1860. In St. Petersburg and Moscow alone, 27,000 infants were left in foundling homes in 1887.(19) During the nineteenth century the poor houses of north-west European countries were overcrowded with abandoned children. In Denmark, where the population numbered roughly 1.6 million inhabitants in 1860, around 9,000 persons, chiefly children, were sustained in the 1,177 poor houses in the country. During the next two decades the number of poor houses in Denmark rose to 1,631, and the number of inmates to almost 10,500.(20) In the 1890s there were 41,000 foster-children in Sweden, the majority of whom were placed in private households as opposed to institutions.(21)

The permanence of placing a child in a foundling home varied from country to country in nineteenth-century Europe. In Madrid and Milan half, or more, of the children abandoned were legitimate, while in Paris, only 5 per cent to 15 per cent were born to married mothers, who often had died.(22) Rachel G. Fuchs has suggested

that the reason for a high proportion of married women abandoning their babies in Milan and Madrid, and perhaps Moscow, compared with the a paucity of them in Paris, stems in part from the ease of getting a baby back in the other cities and the enormous difficulty and expense of doing so in Paris.(23)

The majority of abandoned children in Paris were thus illegitimate, largely born to single domestic servants, who were not in the position of keeping both their babies and their jobs.(24)

In nineteenth-century Iceland there were no institutions intended for the care of abandoned or poor children. Families in need of poor relief were split up, and the members not able to work for their maintenance, apportioned among taxpaying heads of households for an agreed period of time.(25) A considerable proportion of paupers were children or elderly persons. According to the census of 1703 the population of Iceland numbered 50,358 persons, of which 7,800, or 15.5 per cent, were paupers in receipt of communal poor relief. More than 50 per cent of all paupers were under the age of twenty.(26) During the late nineteenth century the same applied to around 75 per cent of paupers apportioned among taxpaying heads of households in the largest town in the country, Reykjavik.(27)

The percentage of paupers of the Icelandic population rose sharply between 1850 and 1870, mainly as a result of over-population and unemployment in the farming sector, where the number of servants reached its highest level ever between 1860 and 1870.(28) In 1850, 2.9 per cent of the population were paupers apportioned among taxpaying heads of households, while 6.1 per cent were in this position in 1870.(29) In addition to this, 804 households were in receipt of poor relief in 1870. Taking this into account, it has been estimated that at least 12 per cent of the population were dependent on poor relief in 1870.(30) The number of paupers slowly declined during the period 1870-1901. This was partly the result of decreasing population pressure in rural areas following the emigration of around 12,000 persons to Canada, and partly the results of important changes in the Icelandic economy; urbanization gained pace and fishing became more important for the national economy.(31) In 1901 7.8 per cent of the population benefited from poor relief.(32)

The situation of young paupers in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Iceland has been dealt with in a number of works.(33) It appears that these children were often maltreated, both physically and psychologically. This may have been heightened by the fact that until the first decades of the twentieth century many local governments auctioned out the maintenance of their paupers to the lowest bidder.(34) The quotation which forms the title of this article helps to cast light on the situation of paupers in late eighteenth-century Iceland. Asked by a visitor whether he was a pauper at a farm in northern Iceland, a young boy replied: "you hardly need two pairs of glasses to see that." When the visitor enquired how he was being treated, the boy answered: "everyone's been good to me, especially the dogs."(35)

According to the Icelandic medieval poor law family and kin had extensive obligations to provide for destitute relatives. By a revised poor law in 1834 these responsibilities were somewhat restricted, but still committed persons to provide for their closest kin.(36) Local governments first aided the destitute when immediate relatives failed to do so. Owing to this many poor children are liable to have been privately supported as foster-children in the homes of close kin.

This may not least apply to illegitimate children of unmarried women servants. Servants were proportionally more numerous in Iceland than in any other West-European country.(37) During the period 1850-1890 close to 40 per cent of the population above the age of 15 were servants.(38) As a rule Icelandic servants were unmarried. Contrary to the West-European pattern, where service was for the most part a stage in the life-cycle between leaving home and marrying, service remained a life-long position for many Icelanders owing to the restricted marriage prospects during the nineteenth century.(39) The illegitimacy ratio in the country was extremely high by European standards, rising from around 14 per cent during the first half of the nineteenth century, to over 20 per cent during the last three decades of the century.(40) Most women giving birth to illegitimate children were servants of scant means. The Icelandic censuses show, however, that it was comparatively unusual for a servant to be allowed to bring an illegitimate child into the household where she served.(41) In this respect Icelandic women servants appear to have been in a position similar to that of their counterparts in the glamorous city of Paris.

Foster-Children and Young Paupers in Nineteenth-Century Arnessysla

The county of Arnessysla was one of the most densely populated farming districts in Iceland during the nineteenth century. The district covers an area of 8,810 |km.sup.2~, of which 2,860 |km.sup.2~ are vegetated.(42) The population of the district numbered 4,625 persons in 1801, 5,159 in 1845, 5,891 in 1870 and 6,394 in year 1901.(43) In 1840 17.5 per cent of the population were servants. This proportion had risen to 29.2 per cent in 1860, but had declined to 23.6 by 1890.(44) Animal husbandry constituted the chief livelihood of the inhabitants of Arnessysla,(45) although fishing grew in importance during the latter part of the century with the rise of two villages, Eyrarbakki and Stokkseyri, on the southern coast. The majority of farmers in the district were tenants, many of whom only leased their farms for a year at a time. Mean household size in the district was comparatively large compared with the fishing districts in western Iceland and less productive rural areas. In many parishes in the district mean household size surpassed eight persons between 1845 and 1880.(46)

Despite the fact that Arnessysla was a relatively productive farming district by Icelandic standards, expenditure on poor relief was comparatively high. In 1870 the proportion of paupers in the district was close to the national average. At the turn of the twentieth century, however, the district ranked third of the 25 jurisdictional districts in the country as regards the cost of poor relief per inhabitant.(47) The fact that poverty and illegitimacy reached its peak around 1870 is likely to have had important consequences for the number of foster-children and young paupers in Iceland. If poverty and illegitimacy were the primary causes of child abandonment in Iceland, as appears to have been the case elsewhere in Europe, one should expect an increase in the proportional number of foster-children and young paupers in Arnessysla in 1870.

Tables 1 and 2 present the results of an inquiry into the number of foster-children and paupers under the age of 20 in Arnessysla according to the censuses of TABULAR DATA OMITTED 1801, 1845, 1870 and 1901. The tables show that while the joint proportion of foster-children and paupers under the age of 20 rose between 1845 and 1870 (10.7 per cent in 1845 compared with 13.7 in 1870), this was largely due to an increasing proportional number of paupers in the population. Table 1 shows that the percentage of foster-children of those under the age of 20 changed little during the nineteenth century. Contrary to what might have been expected the percentage of foster-children was highest in 1845, not in 1870, when poverty was more acute, and the illegitimacy ratio in the country at its peak. Table 2 reveals that the high proportion of foster-children in the 1845 census is not least caused by the relatively large number of such children in the age groups 10-14 and 15-19 years as compared with the other censuses. The number of households in the county rose from around 720 in 1845 to over 770 in 1870.(48) This means that every fourth household included a foster-child in 1845, while almost every fifth did in 1870.

Table 1

Foster-Children and Paupers under the Age of 20 in Arnessysla
1801, 1845, 1870 and 1901

                  % of age            % of age
                   groups             groups     Population
        Foster-   younger             younger    under the
Year   children   than 20   Paupers   than 20    age of 20

1801     119        6.7        43       2.4        1,771
1845     177        7.7        79       3.4        2,299
1870     161        6.3       191       7.4        2,585
1901     151        6.2       113       4.7        2,419

Sources: Manntal a Islandi 1801. Sudhuramt. Manntal a Islandi
1845. Sudhuramt. NAI. Manntal a Islandi 1870, Arnessysla;
Manntal a Island 1901, Arnessysla.

The percentage of paupers was as expected much higher in 1870 than in the other censuses. As pointed out above, the number of paupers reached its peak in 1870 and mean household size in the country was extremely large between 1870 and 1880. It is therefore plausible that the economic situation of a large proportion of the population in 1870 was so precarious that relatives and kin were not in a position to foster children if parents failed to provide for them. The children and youth in question were in turn supported by the local communes as paupers, if they could not acquire work to pay for their maintenance.

Analysis of the 1870 census indicates that many youngsters actually earned their keep, although they were not employed as servants. Thus the census lists a far greater number of children and youth categorized as "errand-boy," "shepherd-boy," "earns her keep," etc. than the other censuses analyzed.(49) Evidence presented in Table 2 does, however, reveal that a far higher proportion of the age groups 10-14 and 15-19 years of age were forced to rely on communal poor relief in 1870 than in 1801, 1845 and 1901. Since children and youth between the ages of 10 and 20 were valuable in the household work-force during the nineteenth century, this reflects on the employment situation of the country, and the high level of poverty in 1870.

Table 2 also shows that foster-children were proportionally more numerous in the age groups 5-9 and 10-14 years of age than in the youngest age group. Paupers were also comparatively few in the age group 0-4 years of age. There are at least two possible explanations for this: (1) parents were more reluctant to part with young children than older offspring, if they had the means of providing for them, (2) older children were more attractive to the prospective foster-parents, as an usable addition to their family work-force. I shall return to this below in the concluding discussion.

Why Did Children Become Foster-Children and with Whom Did They Reside?

In order to determine the social position of foster-children in nineteenth-century Iceland, it is important to know the circumstances by which they entered this position, and to establish with whom they resided. To shed some light on this I have compiled two sample groups of foster-children, consisting of 25 children each, randomly chosen from the censuses of Arnessysla in 1845 and 1870. Even if the samples are too small to allow for a high degree of statistical accuracy in the analysis, they should suffice to establish the main reasons for fostering during the period, and help to answer the question with whom foster-children resided.

Parish registers, catechetical registers and censuses have been used to reconstruct the life-histories of the 50 children from birth until they became foster-children. Some of the children have been followed in the records even longer in order to establish how permanent their residence was within the households where they were registered in the censuses. The same sources have been used to examine the fate of the children's parents and to establish whether or not there existed kinship ties between the children and the families where they resided.(50)

The results of this research are presented in Table 3. A large proportion of the children were living with grandparents or uncles/aunts; many resided with unrelated foster-parents in the parish where their parent(s) were living.(51) In 1845, 24 per cent of foster-children were living in the households of unrelated persons without their parents living in the parish, and the same was true for 20 per cent of foster-children in the 1870 sample. In both census years there were more legitimate children in this position than illegitimate ones. It must, TABULAR DATA OMITTED however, be pointed out that there may have been ties of friendship (or distant kinship) between the parents of these children and the families with which they resided.

The evidence presented in Table 3 clearly reveals that the majority of foster-children were either fostered by kin or by families living in the immediate neighborhood of the natal-parents. The sample of children chosen from the census of 1870 provides an extremely curious result: eight of the 25 foster-children (32 per cent) were actually living in the same household as one parent, or both, without being registered as their children. The same applied to two children (8 per cent) belonging to the 1845 sample. The great majority of children in this position were either registered as foster-children in the households of grandparents or uncles/aunts. In these cases it is difficult to explain why the census enumerators have not accounted for the co-residence of parents and children. A possible explanation is that the residence of the parents within the households was less permanent than that of the children and that it was more important to the census enumerators to register the relationship between the household heads and their dependents, than to account for kinship ties within the household. It is, however, worth noting that the census lists a number of children registered as "grandchildren." It seems unlikely that there was any difference between the position of these and foster-children living with grandparents.

Fostering in nineteenth-century southern Iceland does not seem to have been as closely linked with child abandonment in the sense it was in many other European countries, where parents voluntarily or involuntarily left their children in foundling homes. The results presented so far rather suggest that in many cases the kin group functioned as a support network when parents could not provide for their children. However, the number of paupers in the age groups below the age of 20 clearly shows that many parents were not in a position to entrust their children to the care of kin, friends or close neighbors in the event of economic, or other, difficulties. Those who were forced to request poor relief in order to support themselves and/or their children were often compelled to abandon their children. The local governments in question placed the children (and often the parent|s~ as well) as paupers in the homes of taxpaying heads of households. The position of these children is likely to have been very different from that of the majority of foster-children. Young paupers had involuntarily been abandoned by their parents and frequently had to suffer bad treatment on behalf of their new masters.(52) Research into the fate of young paupers (1-14 years old) registered in the census of 1801 established that children who became paupers had a considerably lower life-expectancy than children of farmers, and their social position later in life was markedly inferior to that of farmers' children.(53)

A poor law commission active between 1902-1905 investigated the circumstances of paupers in 1901. It came to the conclusion that the majority of recipients either requested relief owing to difficulties in providing for their children or because of failing health. The loss of a spouse figured highly among the reasons noted.(54) Were the reasons for placing children in other households for fostering similar to those which reduced the poor to the position of paupers? A closer examination of the life-histories of the 50 foster-children, whose residence is analyzed in Table 3, should contribute to an answer to that question.

It is evident from Table 3 that a high proportion of foster-children were illegitimate. This applied to 36 per cent of foster-children in 1845, compared with 56 per cent in 1870. It has been pointed out earlier that the illegitimacy ratio in the country rose substantially between 1850 and 1870, so the increase in the proportion of illegitimate foster-children during the period was to be expected. As in several other European countries mothers of illegitimate children had limited possibilities of keeping their children. Many of them became paupers, but family and kin often stepped in and fostered these children. This does not only apply to family and kin of the mothers of illegitimate children. Three illegitimate foster-children were living with their grandparents on their fathers' side in 1870, and in all cases the fathers were registered as living on the same farms as their children. This may indicate that fathers took more responsibility for their illegitimate children than was the case in many other Nordic countries.(55) In Sweden, for instance, men named as fathers by mothers of illegitimate children, usually swore an oath to deny the fatherhood.(56)

There were two main reasons for legitimate children being fostered by other persons than their parents: (1) the premature death of a parent, and (2) difficulties in providing for a large number of offspring. I shall illustrate this with a few examples.

In 1845 the girl Valgerdhur Jonsdottir was a five year old foster-child in the parish of Stokkseyri. According to the catechetical registers of the parish she lived with her parents and four siblings from birth until 1844 when her mother died. Her father continued to live in the parish, but appears to have been unable to take care of all his children. Hence, the girl was fostered by a couple in the neighborhood, without there having been any kinship ties between the two families.(57) The death of parent also meant that Maria Jonsdottir became a foster-child. In 1845, at the age of five, she lived in the household of the farmer Gudhmundur Magnusson in the parish of Hreppholar. She entered that household in 1843, the year after her mother died. Her parents had eight children alive by that time, and her father was unable to care for them all. Even though he remarried in 1844 his daughter remained with her foster-parents in the same parish where her father was living with his new wife and seven children in 1845.(58)

Even if both parents were alive they were often forced to place a child in another household for fostering. A twelve year old boy, ghordhur Ingvarsson was a foster-child at the farm of Sydhrasel in the parish of Stokkseyri in 1845. According to the census his parents were living in a cottage in the close vicinity of the boy with three children. The catechetical registers show that ghordhur lived with his parents until 1843 when he moved to Sydhrasel, shortly after the birth of his youngest sibling. It may well be that ghordhur became a burden to his parents' economy now they had one more mouth to feed, whereas the boy, who was 10 years old at the time, may have been a valuable addition to the work-force at Sydhrasel (as an errand-boy), where he was the youngest member of the household.(59)

The brothers, Johannes Jonsson and Josep Jonsson, constitute the most striking example of children being fostered by others owing to parents' difficulties of providing for a large group of offspring. The brothers lived in two different households and their kinship was discovered when scrutinizing the parish registers for information on their background. When doing this an interesting family history unveiled. In 1845 the brothers were 12 years and nine years old respectively and living as foster-children in the parish of Storinupur, bordering on the parish of Hreppholar where their parents lived. The older one, Johannes, was a foster-child in the household of an uncle on the father's side, while his younger brother was fostered by an uncle on the mother's side of the family. Their parents' marriage was an unusually fertile one: during a period of 18 years their mother gave birth to 13 children, before dying at the age of 39 in 1842. Thus, the average interval between births was 17.3 months. Only two of these children (the second and third to be born) died in infancy. Johannes was their seventh child and he was fostered by his uncle from birth. Their eighth child, a boy, lived with his parents until the age of six when he disappears from the sources. The ninth child was a girl who was fostered by an unrelated couple in a neighboring parish. Josep was their tenth child and, as Johannes, he was fostered by an uncle from birth. The children who were born after this stayed at home. The father remarried in 1845 and had four children by his second wife, of whom one was stillborn. His second wife died in 1856 and the farm was soon after taken over by his son. In 1860, the oldest daughter was married and lived on a farm in the parish of Reykir with two of her younger sisters registered as servants in her household.(60)

Even if this is an extreme case it clearly demonstrates the importance of kinship networks in relieving economic difficulties faced by parents with a large number of children.

The circumstances leading to the fostering of legitimately born children were essentially the same in 1870 as in 1845. Two examples should suffice to illustrate this.

In 1870 Gudhridhur ghorsteinsdottir was a 13 year old foster-child in the household of her uncle at the farm of Einholt in the parish of Haukadalur. When she was born, in 1857, her parents were registered as servants on the same farm which at the time was run by her grandfather on the mother's side. In 1860 her parents had taken over and managed half the farmland. In 1861 her father died. Soon after her mother left the farm but Gudhridhur remained there, first in the care of her grandfather, but after his death, as a foster-child in the household of her 29 year old uncle.(61)

The girl, Fridhrika Magnusdottir, became a foster-child owing to her parents' inability to sustain their family. In 1870 the girl was 10 years old and was fostered by a farming couple in the parish of Villingaholt. Ten years earlier she had lived with her parents at the farm of Olvadhsholt in the neighboring parish of Hraungerdhi. According to the census of 1860 she was the youngest of her parents' four children. During the 1860s her parents were forced to leave the farm they had leased and subsequently moved to the parish of Villingaholt. They were, however, unable to remain in an independent household position of their own for long, and in the census of 1870 Fridhrika's father is registered as a married servant at the farm of Krokur. Her mother and her siblings had by that time moved from the parish.(62)

These findings suggest that the reasons for fostering children in households other than those of natal parents were essentially similar to the ones which led less fortunate children to become paupers apportioned among taxpaying heads of households.

Concluding Discussion

William Ian Miller has claimed that fostering in medieval Iceland "was the social construct within which the circulation of children was comprehended, just as household service was the construct within which the circulation of adolescents or young adults was subsumed."(63) He proceeds to state, that "The fostering of impoverished kin (and abandonment to whatever extent it was engaged in) ... had the effect of equalizing the distribution of children among households."(64) Louise Tilly has expressed a similar view towards child abandonment from late antiquity through the early Middle Ages, which she sees as a "social redistribution of children at the level of the larger community."(65) Using an article by E. A. Wrigley on fertility strategy(66) as a point of departure, she argues that during the modern period there occurred a transformation "from social redistribution of 'surplus' children (and social infanticide through the institution of the foundling hospital) to couple-control of fertility."(67) According to her reasoning, the foundling hospitals of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe, were part of a mechanism which removed "surplus" children from "households which did not need them and could not afford to raise them." Those children who survived to an age "at which they could be economically useful to a household were assigned to foster families."(68) In other words, foundling hospitals were in a sense predecessors of, or an alternative to, technical fertility control, and they did involve a redistribution of "surplus" children from those who did not need them to those who could make them economically advantageous. Is it fruitful to discuss fostering and the position of young paupers in nineteenth-century Iceland from the perspective of redistribution of "surplus" children?

It has been shown that the percentage of foster-children and young paupers in nineteenth-century Arnessysla ranged between 9.1 per cent and 13.7 per cent of those under the age of 20. In 1845 every fourth household in the county included a foster-child, while almost every fifth did in 1870. According to the censuses of 1845 and 1870 around 20 per cent of children in the age group 10-14 years of age were either paupers or foster-children. The same applied to a substantial proportion of the age group 5-9 years of age. Gudhmundur Halfdanarson has written on child labor in nineteenth-century Iceland, based on an analysis of 129 autobiographies of persons born between 1846 and 1899. His research has established that children were already at the age of 6-7 years a valuable part of the family work-force, especially in the countryside. Children were particularly useful in attending sheep and cattle, but many of the autobiographies also account for several other tasks entrusted to young children.(69) At the age of 10-14 years the work carried out by children became more complicated and demanding. The confirmation, which usually took place at the age of 14, was generally regarded as a transition into adulthood; once confirmed the youth was regarded as capable of carrying out all tasks particular to farming and fishing.(70)

It is clear from several works that child labor was viewed as a part of upbringing; children were at an early age to learn that work was ennobling.(71) It appears, however, that the majority of young children were rarely over-exploited as workers. Nevertheless, Halfdanarson claims that there were many exceptions to this, especially as regards young paupers and foster-children.(72) The exploitation of young paupers is, as pointed out earlier, well documented, but the autobiographical evidence relating to the exploitation of foster-children is extremely limited; in fact Halfdanarson only cites two sources to substantiate his reasoning.(73) It is important to note that both children in question were fostered by unrelated persons.

The results presented in the previous section of this article suggest that fostering in nineteenth-century southern Iceland was to a large degree characterized by close relatives rearing the children of impoverished kin. Around 60 per cent of foster-children resided with grandparents or uncles/aunts. Another 20 per cent resided with non related persons living in the close vicinity of one parent or both. The remaining 20 per cent lived with unrelated persons in a different parish from the one in which the parents resided. These proportions remained surprisingly stable between 1845 and 1870.

As mentioned earlier, the age structure of foster-children can either indicate that parents were reluctant to part with young children, or that heads of households were more willing to foster children who had reached an age at which they could contribute to the household economy. More research is required to establish which of the two explanations has more validity. Even if foster-parents favored older children for economic reasons it would be premature to argue that the primary concern by their fostering was to "equalize the distribution of children among households," to borrow Miller's phrase. Although children fostered by close kin were undoubtedly utilized as labor, the main objective by their fostering was unquestionably to assist parents in need and to prevent the children from becoming paupers. The life histories of the 50 children analyzed above clearly demonstrate that kinship networks were of great importance in nineteenth-century southern Iceland. The extent to which redistribution of "surplus" children may have played a role in determining the position of foster-children residing with unrelated persons remains less clear. The case of ghordhur Ingvarsson, discussed above, is prospectively one in which a child was removed from a household which did not need him and could not afford to raise him, and placed in another where his laboring capacities could be of advantage.

The apportioning of young paupers among taxpaying heads of households, not to speak of the auctioning of their maintenance, constitutes a far clearer example of redistribution of "surplus" children than does fostering. These children were frequently treated without much concern for their health or their need for care. Many heads of households including such members, looked upon them as cheap labor to be exploited.

The evidence presented in this article suggests that the position of foster-children within households in nineteenth-century southern Iceland was in general superior to that of young paupers. Most foster-children were either reared by close kin, or living in the immediate neighborhood of at least one parent. Illegitimacy, death of a parent, or difficulties in providing for a large number of offspring seem primarily to have led to children being fostered by other persons than the natal parents. The reasons for fostering in nineteenth-century Iceland were thus similar to those accounted for in research on many other European countries. In the absence of institutional "care" for children of impoverished parents, family and kin played a key role in caring for children. In this respect fostering in Iceland cannot be as closely associated with child abandonment as was the case in several European countries. Many parents were, however, not in a position to entrust their children to the care of kin or unrelated persons. These were forced to abandon their children, leaving them to the hardships and lack of care experienced by many a young pauper.

ENDNOTES

The initial version of this article was presented at seminars at the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure, the University of East Anglia, the Univeristy of Liverpool, and at the Social Science History Association's meeting in Chicago during the autumn of 1992. I am grateful to Olof Gardharsdottir for help with excerpting material from the National Archives of Iceland.

1. Linda A. Pollock offers a critical discussion of research into parent-child relations in her book, Forgotten Children: Parent-Child Relations from 1500 to 1900 (Cambridge, 1983). For a overview of research into the history of childhood, see, for instance a special issue of Continuity and Change, Vol. 4, part 2, 1989.

2. Peter Laslett devoted a chapter to this subject in his book, Family Life and Illicit Love in Earlier Generations (Cambridge, 1977), pp. 160-173.

3. David I. Kertzer points out that in "typical studies of household composition, no attention is given to children who are not related to the household head." David I. Kertzer, "Gender Ideology and Infant Abandonment in Nineteenth-Century Italy," Journal of Interdisciplinary History Vol. XXII, no. 1 (1991): 3. Rachel G. Fuchs claims that when writing a dissertation on child abandonment in the late 1970s "one historian opined that the subject was not 'serious' history; another exclaimed that such a topic was not 'real history.'" See Louise A. Tilly, Rachel G. Fuchs, David Kertzer and David L. Ransel "Child Abandonment in European History: A Symposium," Journal of Family History Vol. 17, no. 1 (1992): 7.

4. For a recent discussion of works dealing with child abandonment see, Louise A. Tilly, Rachel G. Fuchs, David Kertzer and David L. Ransel "Child Abandonment in European History: A Symposium," pp. 1-23. On stepfamily relationships, see, for instance, Stephen D. Collins, Step-parents and their Children (London, 1988), and his article, "British Stepfamily Relationships, 1500-1800," Journal of Family History Vol. 16, no. 4 (1991): 331-344.

5. John Boswell, The Kindness of Strangers: The Abandonment of Children in Western Europe from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance (New York, 1988), pp. 285-291.

6. Gisli Agust Gunnlaugsson, Family and Household in Iceland 1801-1930: Studies in the relationship between demographic and socio-economic development, social legislation and family and household structures (Uppsala, 1988), p. 64.

7. This also applies to several other European regions where foster-children were numerous during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as was the case in Austria and Central Europe, see, for instance, Michael Mitterauer & Reinhard Sieder, The European Family: Patriarchy to Partnership from the Middle Ages to the Present (Oxford, 1982), p. 16.

8. See a discussion in, Gisli Agust Gunnlaugsson, Family and Household in Iceland 1801-1930, pp. 64-65.

9. The census of 1801 is published in its entirety, Manntal a Islandi I-III (Reykjavik, 1978-1980). A census like registration of most of the population is preserved from 1816 and has also been published, Manntal a Islandi 1816I-VI (Akureyri and Reykjavik, 1947-1974). Between 1835 and 1860 censuses were compiled every fifth year. Of these the census of 1845 has been published, Manntal a Islandi 1845 I-III (Reykjavik, 1982-1985). Between 1860 and 1960 censuses were compiled every 10 years (with the exception of 1901 instead of 1900). Statistical analyses of census material have been published since the nineteenth century in various official publications.

10. John Boswell, The Kindness of Strangers, p. 207.

11. Ibid, note 94.

12. Ibid, p. 358. See also William Ian Miller, Bloodtaking and Peacemaking: Feud, Law, and Society in Saga Iceland (Chicago, 1990), pp. 122-123.

13. John Boswell, The Kindness of Strangers, pp. 356-357.

14. For an interesting comparison of fostering in different cultures, see Esther Goody, "Eltern-Strategien: Kalkul oder Gefuhl? Pflegekindschaftsbrauche westafrikanischer Familien," in H. Medick and D. Sabean, eds., Emotionen und materielle Interessen: Sozialanthropologische und historische Beitrage zur Familienforschung (Gottingen, 1984), pp. 360-375.

15. William Ian Miller, Bloodtaking and Peacemaking, pp. 122-124.

16. Loftur Guttormsson, Bernska, ungdomur og uppeldi a einveldisold. Tilraun til felagslegrar og lydhfraedhilegrar greiningar (Reykjavik, 1983), pp. 133-185.

17. Ibid, p. 152, note 104.

18. Jean Meyer disputes that this was the case in eighteenth- century France, maintaining that the increase in the number of foundlings in the country from the seventeenth century to the eighteenth cannot be attributed to a deteriorating economy. He maintains that the phenomenon can better be explained in terms of the disruption of family life in French towns during the eighteenth century and the "influx of girls and single women in distress," see, Jean Meyer, "Illegitimates and foundlings in pre-industrial France," in Peter Laslett et al., eds., Bastardy and its Comparative History: Studies in the history of illegitimacy and marital nonconformism in Britain, France, Sweden, North America, Jamaica and Japan (Cambridge, Mass., 1980), pp. 261-262. For a discussion of foundling policy in nineteenth-century France, see Katherine A. Lynch, Family, Class and Ideology in Early Industrial France: Social Policy and the Working-Class Family, 1825-1848 (Wisconsin, 1988), pp. 114-167.

19. David I. Kertzer, "Gender Ideology and Infant Abandonment in Nineteenth-Century Italy," pp. 5-6.

20. Ingeborg Christmas-Moller, Pa fattighuset. Greve Hospital og andre fattighus pa landet i 1700-og 1800-tallet (Copenhagen, 1978), pp. 13-14.

21. Birgit Persson, "Fosterbarn pa 1800-talet: Vart tredje spadbarn dog," Forskning och framsteg, no. 1, 1989, p. 9.

22. Louise A. Tilly, Rachel G. Fuchs, David Kertzer and David L. Ransel "Child Abandonment in European History: A Symposium," p. 8.

23. Ibid., pp. 8-9.

24. Ibid., p. 9.

25. For a discussion of the Icelandic poor law see, Gisli Agust Gunnlaugsson, Family and Household in Iceland 1801-1930, chapter 3.

26. Statistics of Iceland II, 21. Population Census 1703 (Reykjavik, 1960), p. 5.

27. Gisli Agust Gunnlaugsson, Omagar og utangardhsfolk. Fataekramal Reykjavikur 1786-1907 (Reykjavik, 1982), p. 167.

28. Ibid., chapter 1.

29. Skyrslur um landshagi a Islandi V (Copenhagen, 1875), p. 659. See discussion in, Gisli Agust Gunnlaugsson, Omagar og utangardhsfolk, pp. 101-106.

30. Gisli Agust Gunnlaugsson, Omagar og utangardhsfolk, p. 106.

31. For a discussion of the economic development of Iceland during this period, see, Magnus S. Magnusson, Iceland in Transition: labor and socio-economic change before 1940 (Lund, 1985).

32. Gisli Agust Gunnlaugsson, Omagar og utangardhsfolk, p. 131.

33. See, for instance, ibid. and Loftur Guttormsson, Bernska, ungdomur og uppeldi a einveldisold, pp. 133-185.

34. Gisli Agust Gunnlaugsson, Omagar og utangardhsfolk, pp. 178. This was also a common practice in Sweden from 1847 until the first decades of this century, see Birgit Persson, "Fosterbarn pa 1800-talet," pp. 6-8.

35. Arnor Sigurjonsson, Einars saga Asmundssonar I (Reykjavik, 1957), pp. 3-4.

36. Lovsamling for Island X (Copenhagen, 1861), pp. 423-434.

37. Peter Laslett, "Introduction," in Peter Laslett and Richard Wall, eds., Household and Family in Past Time (Cambridge, 1972), pp. 26 and 52.

38. Gudhmundur Jonsson, Vinnuhju a 19. old (Reykjavik, 1981), p. 10.

39. Gisli Agust Gunnlaugsson, Family and Household in Iceland 1801-1930, pp. 60-62, 70-71.

40. Statistics of Iceland II, 40. Statistical Abstract of Iceland (Reykjavik, 1967), pp. 38-39.

41. In the district of Arnessysla with 4,625 inhabitants in 1801, only 13 women servants are registered as having a child with them in the household of service. See, Manntal a Islandi 1801. Sudhuramt (Reykjavik, 1978). There were, however, a number of cases of servants living in the households of close kin, where their children were registered as foster-children (see a discussion below). The marital status of servants is dealt with in Gudhmundur Jonsson, Vinnuhju.

42. Statistics of Iceland 11, 63. Statistical Abstract of Iceland 1974 (Reykjavik, 1976), p. 3.

43. Manntal a Islandi 1845. Sudhuramt (Reykjavik, 1982), table 3. Statistics of Iceland II, 63, p. 14.

44. Gudhmundur Jonsson, Vinnuhju, p. 12.

45. For a topographical description of the district during the middle of the nineteenth century, see, Arnessysla. Syslu-og soknarlysingar Hins islenzka bokmenntafelagss 1839-1843 og lysing Olfushrepps anno 1703 eftir Halfdan Jonsson. Ed. by Svavar Sigmundsson (Reykjavik, 1979).

46. Gisli Agust Gunnlaugsson, Family and Household in Iceland 1801-1930, chapter 4.

47. Ibid., p. 141.

48. Skyrslur um landshagi a Islandi I (Copenhagen, 1858), pp. 18-19. Skyrslur um landshagi a Islandi V (Copenhagen, 1875), pp. 236-237.

49. National Archives of Iceland, Reykjavik (hereafter: NAI). Manntal a Islandi 1870, Arnessysla.

50. The sources used are preserved in NAI. Preststhjonustubaekur og soknarmannatol VI. Arnesprofastsdaemi. (Parish registers and catechetical registers). Manntal a Islandi, Arnessysla 1835, 1840, 1845, 1850, 1855, 1860, 1870, 1880.

51. The censuses do not account for kinship ties between these foster-children and their grandparents or aunts and uncles with whom they resided. These relationships have come to light when scrutinizing parish and catechetical registers for information on the children's background. This clearly reveals how easily kinship ties within the household are underestimated when research is based entirely on censuses, or census-like sources, not to mention kinship relations beyond the household. David I. Kertzer, Dennis P. Hogan and Nancy Karweit have studied the latter phenomenon in their article, "Kinship Beyond the Household in a Nineteenth-Century Italian Town," Continuity and Change vol. 7, (1992): 103-121.

52. Gisli Agust Gunnlaugsson, Omagar og utangardhsfolk. Loftur Guttormsson, Bernska, ungdomur og uppeldi.

53. Gisli Gunnarsson, "Hvadh vardh um omagabornin, sem skyrt var fra i manntalinu 1801? Urvinnsla ur fjorum nemendaritgerdhum," Sagnir 10 (1989): 96-97.

54. Gisli Agust Gunnlaugsson, Omagar og utangardhsfolk, pp. 166-7.

55. Research into cases where a servant girl gave birth to an illegitimate child naming a married head of household as the father indicates that in most cases mother and child left the farm shortly after the birth of the child, but the child often returned to the father's household at the age of 2-5 years, and was registered there as a foster-child. See, Bara Baldursdottir, "Holdidh er veikt. Vinnukonur i Dalasyslu og S.-Mulasyslu sem eignudhust born medh husbaendum sinum 1861-1900". Unpublished paper, Institute of History, University of Iceland.

56. See for instance, Marja Taussi Sjoberg, Dufvans fangar: Brottet, straffet och manniskan i 1800-talets Sverige (Malmo, 1986).

57. NAI. Prestthjonustubaekur og soknarmannatol. VI. Arnesprofastsdaemi: Stokkseyri.

58. NAI. Prestthjonustubaekur og sonarmannatol. VI. Arnesprofastsdaemi: Hreppholar.

59. NAI. Prestthjonustubaekur og soknarmannatol. VI. Arnesprofastsdaemi: Stokkseyri.

60. NAI. Prestthjonustubaekur og soknarmannatol. VI. Arnesprofastsdaemi: Hreppholar, Storinupur. Manntal a Islandi 1835, 1840, 1845, 1860, Arnessysla.

61. NAI. Prestthjonustubaekur og soknarmannatol. VI. Arnesprofastsdaemi: Haukadalur. Manntal a Islandi, Arnessysla 1860 and 1870.

62. NAI. Prestthjonustubaekur og soknarmannatol. VI. Arnesprofastsdaemi: Villingaholt, Hraungerdhi. Manntal a Islandi, Arnessysla 1860 and 1870.

63. William Ian Miller, Bloodtaking and Peacemaking, p. 123.

64. Ibid.

65. Louise A. Tilly, Rachel G. Fuchs, David Kertzer and David L. Ransel "Child Abandonment in European History: A Symposium," p. 2.

66. E. A. Wrigley, "Fertility Strategy for the Individual and the Group," in Charles Tilly (ed.), Historical Studies of Changing Fertility (Princeton, 1978), pp. 135-154.

67. Louise A. Tilly, Rachel G. Fuchs, David Kertzer and David L. Ransel "Child Abandonment in European History: A Symposium," p. 2.

68. Ibid. p. 5

69. Gudhmundur Halfdanarson, "Born--hofudhstoll fataeklingsins?", Saga, XXIV, 1986, pp. 121-146.

70. Ibid.

71. Ibid. See also, Laughter Guttormsson, Bernska, ungdomur og uppeldi.

72. Gudhmundur Halfdanarson, "Born--hofudhstoll fataeklingsins?", p. 140.

73. Ibid., p. 135, note 39.