This article focuses on nineteenth century women that broke Malthusian principles by getting pregnant out of wedlock and by marrying early. It starts from the common denominator in scholarly debate, which associates sexual intercourse of single young women with proletarian living and working conditions, isolation from the family of origin, and migration. The Belgian population registers allow to shed more empirical light on the effects of living conditions. The findings incite to have a closer look at the structure of the marriage market in order to explain illegitimacy and bridal pregnancy.

The mortality analysis in East Belgium during the second part of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century reveals a deep disparity between town and countryside, which however disappears at the end of the period. Although its interpretation is difficult, the statistic of causes of deaths locates the original gap in the context of an epidemiological depression which affects the urban centres between 1830 and 1870.