The present study aims to investigate in terms of quantitative and qualitative perspectives the rural habitat in the county of Arad during the eighteenth century. The dynamics of settlements, their evolution over the century, changes occurred in the types of environments were conducted in conjunction with the policy of the new imperial authorities and in accordance with the populationist policy of the Habsburg Empire. The rural habitat which predominated in the Arad County suffered changes of great importance not only just as a consequence of the official systematization policy, but also as a result of the constant demographical increase which occurred in the eighteenth century.
The European Charter of Local Self-Government is, so far, the first and most important international political tool which guarantees the development of decentralization of public power and local autonomy. It represents the commitment of the Council of Europe's member country to promote in the internal organization of their states, a new distribution of functions and powers in order to support the development of subnational levels. In carrying out the delimitation process of responsibilities between levels of public power's achievement we should start from the provisions of The European Charter of Local Self-Government which is based on institutional practices and structures, tested for decades in dozen of European countries. That means rationing, giving up improper structures, which would result the removing of the vertical power and as consequence the demolition of foundations on which inefficiency and corruption are based on. The necessity of transferring the resources and powers to the local level is dictated by a vital imperative – the strengthening of local public authorities' capacities and potential in order to locally provide a maximum volume of qualitative public services. This requires creating a clear and simple demarcation algorithm of responsibilities between the levels of exercise of public power.
This study submits to our attention some qualitative and quantitative aspects related to urban and semi urban habitat from the former Arad County in the eighteenth century. If in 1715 there were 6 market towns, at the end of the century were already 15. Based on the conscriptions, urbariums and census, I have tried to detect the evolution of market towns during the entire eighteenth century. Reform policy of the Habsburg absolutism has determined even an economic and demographic increase in the market towns of Arad County. Between those 15 market towns of the county existing in 1787 only Arad had obvious urban characteristics. Here was concentrated 6.15% of the county population. By comparison with other counties from Transylvania and Hungary, I have pursued to dignify and quantify different aspects of the urbanization degree in the Arad County registered in the eighteenth century. The development of market towns in Arad County has had the same evolution with those of Central and Eastern Europe, because the agrarian character of these localities was predominant. The evolution towards urbanization was evident along the eighteenth century both in terms of population growth and a great social mobility and also in light of the economic and municipal development. The transformations in the direction of modernization registered during the eighteenth century were the basement of the future process of urbanization of Arad County in the century that has followed.
Divorce is, irrespective of the perspective of approaching the phenomenon from the point of view of the society typology, a form of social deviance that has as effect the dilution of family image and norms. We do not discuss here of a dilution of the traditional norms concerning family, as someone might misunderstand, it is an erosion of the idea of family in general. "Family" starts to have other forms than the "official" ones. Divorce is the last step in the process of erosion and dissolution of the central axis of the family – the marital couple. Despite the fact that we have considered the divorce as the last step in this process of dissolution, we have to admit the fact that, after the divorce, considering that the old couple had children, the existence of the family does not cease, it just takes a new form. The research of the archives, preserved due to the parish notes (often duplicates), provides the opportunity of identifying the main issues at a certain epoch in the Romanian rural world concerning divorce and the act of divorcing. Our research is structured in two directions: 1. a broad one, through which we will make a quantitative analysis of the size of the phenomenon in the counties of Bihor and Satmar (by observing the particularities in the county seats) – in this way, we will try to calculate the divorce gross rate (by calculating the number of divorces at one thousand inhabitants); 2. the other direction, through a case study on the Greek-Catholic parishes of the diocese of Oradea, will pursue a rather qualitative analysis without ignoring the quantitative aspect. The choice of the Greek-Catholic parishes was made for several reasons: the first is the quality of the materials preserved; the second is the fact that the confession, unlike the Roman-Catholic one for instance, accepts the divorce, thus providing the opportunity of bringing to light the separations undoubtedly existing in the Catholic environment; the third is that we think that, by its position as compared to the two Churches (Catholic and Orthodox), the Uniate Church provides an image that is closer to the reality as shown on the level of the whole population in the region.
The parish registers of civil status, although the main sources of documentation for historical demography, are used with significant results by the other sciences such as history, ethnography, sociology, anthropology, linguistics, etc.. The perspectives of approaching the rural community and family have expanded considerably using these sources of ecclesiastical origin documentaries. The first researchers who refer to a systematic methodology that uses the parish registers of civil status as documentary sources for the completion of demographic data suggest the use of other sources, hitherto unused for this purpose. They will apply a new method, a modern innovation, the stripping and analysis of parish registers of civil status within the meaning of the reconstruction of demographic events (birth, marriage, death). The family reconstitution method, by analyzing the parish registers of civil status proposed by L. Henry and M. Fleury, has revolutionized the field of study dealing with people. Louis Henry believes that the parish registers of civil status is the ultimate source of information for the pre-state period and this is precisely the reason for which he proposes restoring the family's biological life. Church registers are only able to give us an insight into the family in rural areas, at least for the second half of the XIX century. Church documents, the fundamental sources for researching family life, are of two categories: 1. civil status registers and annual reports of the parishes, 2. Church authorities funds, documents and minutes recorded by the bishops. These documents are complex sources for the researcher interested in historical demography, social history, and the economic history of toponymy, birthdays, etc. Processing the data contained in these records requires a specific methodology. They allow us to observe trends that have occurred on the long-term demographic events such as: birth, marriage or death. These records are presented for a long time as their only source of documentation regarding civil status and demographic events in the life of most people. Researching these records can unveil important features of natural population movement, the phenomenon of birth, of marriage, the divorce or death. Then, an analysis of form and content of these registers can capture the cultural universe of the priests who fill these records. These Church documents proved to be important, especially where other documentary sources (mainly those in the category of records made by the state) have proved insufficient, incomplete and unclear. The parish registers of civil status in this case are suitable for both a qualitative analysis, and a quantitative one at the level of local communities. Beyond their usefulness and significance of documentary source, these documents should be regarded as being subjective because they were managed by priests (every priest is then an exponent to promote demographic and confessional "realities" and such realities were viewed from the perspective of his own religious convictions). The parish registers, however, prove to be the only documents that allow us to penetrate the privacy of individuals in each community. A documentary is also undeniably a good dowry that researchers should promote and use in their research not only locally but also to verify and demonstrate certain behaviours and overall trends.
