A blemish for the Swedish virtue : A quantitative study of illegitimate childbearing in three parishin current Karlskrona municipality

This study analyses illegitimate children and their mothers in three different areas in current Karlskrona municipality. The areas that’s been studied is the parish of Kristianopel and Lösen and Karlskrona city parish during the periods 1861-1865, 1890-1900 and 1930-1935. The study is comparative in a time perspective but even in a perspective of different areas. The purpose of this study is to analyze the profession of the unmarried mothers, their chances of getting married and their age. The study also shows the amount of illegitimate children and the percentage of stillborn baby’s in the chosen assembly’s. The method that have been used is of quantitative nature as the main questions of the study is answered by statistics. The study’s theoretical point is gender as an analytical category. The study shows that the investigated areas are overrepresented when it comes to the amount of illegitimate birth in comparison with the national average. The reason among other things is low percentage of religious revivalist movement and changes in the economic system. The child mortality was higher among the illegitimate baby’s than among the children born in marriage. One of the reason can be that the unmarried mothers was forced to work long days with heavy work and that they came from lower social classes whit small financial assets. The child mortality decreases from 1861-1865 until 1930-1935. This is a result of the unmarried mothers getting better conditions, better birth control during pregnancy and less childbirth at home. Many of the illegitimate children were without a known father in the birth book. In all the parish that have been studied there are more known fathers between 1930-1935 in comparison with 1861- 1865. The reason can be the law change in 1918 that stipulated that every unmarried mother should have a child welfare who among other thing help the mother to get economic support from the father.