Fadderskap och sociala nätverk : En studie av Sal socken åren 1845-1880

Sammanfattning

The christening ceremony has been a vital part of the Swedish Christian history, with supposedly clear and defined objectives and use for centuries to come. When the godparenthood was introduced in the Christian early days, the ritual and purposes have gone through several transformations over the cause of time. This paper has got clear evidence from other studies that the godparenthood in the 19th century was used to form social network between the parents of the child and the people attending the ceremony. What previous studies have declared is that the profession of the father was a form of social manifestation, and that the christening ceremony was a part of networking with godparents from the same profession or social class. What also has been proven is that relations between the parents and the godparents could be both horizontal and vertical, depending on the social positions the participants withheld in the local society. What other studies have been focused on is early modern cities and industrial professions and not rural environment. That’s why this study is focusing of the agrarian population of the region Sal during the years 1845-1880.The result shows that the homeowning farmers and soldiers had an inner group exclusiveness that was important to form inclusive social network within. With this strong group-inclusiveness and dominance of the homeowning farmers, the rest of the population was unable to form as strong inner bonds but instead dependent on the homeowning group. The result also shows that the homeowning farmers had vertical social network with the rest of population, since they attended many of the other children’s christening ceremonies, but vice versa was much scarcer. The most significant clear horizontal social network was the bond between two different non-owning groups, where they shared a mutual relationship of attending one and another’s christening ceremonies.