Rebecca Probert (ed.), Cohabitation and non-marital births in England and Wales, 1600-2012 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) [review]

Nowadays the marital status of new parents barely merits comment; this is not surprising given that, as Rebecca Probert explains, ‘almost half of all children in England and Wales are born outside marriage, with cohabiting relationships accounting for the majority of such births’ (p. 1). The aim of this collection of interdisciplinary essays is twofold: to provide the historical context of non-marital child-bearing since 1600, alongside a study of residential sexual relationships outside marriage.