Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Eighteenth-century Stockholm saw a rise in illegitimate births. Yet, premarital sex was illegal, and the early modern household offered few private spaces. Where did unmarried people meet for courtship, intimacy and sex in the early modern city? In this article, we explore the spaces used for illicit sex through a database containing baptismal records of illegitimate children in eighteenth-century Stockholm. We use these records to map the locations where and approximate times when mothers stated their children were conceived. We find that shared households and workplaces were the most common meeting places for couples, that sexual activity took place towards the city centre and not on its outskirts and that urban households in the eighteenth century appear to have been characterized by a porousness and openness that allowed for the creation of pockets of privacy. Lastly, we find little evidence for any organized sex trade in the sources.
Source: Urban History
Authors: Paul Borenberg, Inez Mannerstedt
Institution: Stockholm University
Language: English
Subfield: History
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,550
Funder: Vetenskapsrådet
OpenAlex ID: W4415573073