Preliminary Observations On The Demographic Roots Of Modern Childhood In The Ottoman Empire: Wealth, Children And Status In Ruse, Vidin And Sofia, 1670–1855

Examining the demographic transformation of three Ottoman provincial towns – that is, Sofia, Ruse and Vidin – in the 1670–1855 period, this chapter investigates the historical roots of the nineteenth-century demographic transition in the Ottoman lands with a special emphasis on the correlation between wealth and the surviving number of children. It suggests that there was a Malthusian relationship between the total number of surviving children and wealth in all three Ottoman towns during the period under study. However, as far as the couples with at least one mature child were concerned, such a relationship existed strongly in the eighteenth century, whereas it became weaker after 1800. The civilian middle wealth groups gradually tended to have more children in the post-1800 period, while there was a remarkable decline in the number of surviving children on the part of the wealthiest group, particularly title-holding couples. The chapter thus considers the wealthiest group as the forerunners of the demographic transition in the Ottoman Balkans at the dawn of the modern age, as it attempts to explain the socio-demographic bases of modern discourses, as well as practices regarding the ideal size of family and childhood in the late Ottoman Empire.