The life and circumstances of single men is among the least known parts of our history. Even though available statistics indicates a significant number of single men in the 18th and 19th centuries, we don’t have much quantitative data about them, and our knowledge about their daily life is almost non-existent.



In the 18th and 19th centuries many grown up men could not live up to the social standard of being a master and the head of a family. But we don’t know much about how they coped with this discrepancy between norm and social reality. It would be of specific interest to study single men from the mid 18th century to the late 19th century also because this was a period of fundamental changes in the basic social and economic order.



In this study, the geographical focus will be on the province of östergötland. Within that single region it will be possible to compare very different socioeconomic settings. The project will focus on four main themes:
1) a quantitative analysis of numbers, social structure and geographical distribution.
2) an analysis of their participation and integration within the local communities.
3) single men as a risk group.
4) the visibility or invisibility of single men in literature, debate etc.