Land,Kinship,and Consanguineous Marriage in Italy from the Seventeenth to the Nineteenth Centuries

ABSTRACT: Marriage between consanguineous kin was a common feature of many areas of Italy from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. These took place—with dispensation—both within the broad confines of Church proscriptions on kin marriages and just beyond those confines. In some cases, economic and demographic changes during this period led to increases in such kin marriages, a pattern attributed to the economic strategies of families. Marriages between kin not only served to keep family patrimonies intact over the generations, but often led to hamlets or neighborhoods composed of extended kin.