Chapter 7: Family Life

This chapter will discuss the familial lives of pauper-emancipists. In so doing, the gendered differences associated with the societal roles expected of men and women within their socioeconomic class confines will be discussed. The formation of colonial families is particularly important in the discussion of pauper-emancipists and their ability to remain outside of the institutional walls in old age. The top-down middle-class expectation of the traditional household will be discussed alongside the realities of marriage, common-law partnership, children, and spousal nonmaintenance within the Vandemonian context. Alford (1984) argued that the unemployed in mid-19th century Australia fell into three categories: those for whom employment and relief was provided by the government, private charities, or by friends and family. The support provided by government and private charities were entwined in the Tasmanian context.¹ However, it is important to highlight here that the criteria for admission to charitable institutions was not age alone, but the inability to support oneself and a lack of relatives able to provide support (Brown, 1972). As such, the focus here is on the family, and how the formation of a stable family life in the colony could be an important factor in whether a pauper-emancipist would be re-institutionalized. First, in discussing the social and economic context in which pauper-emancipists lived, this chapter will explore the population structure itself.