Private lives in the Te Aroha district, mostly in the nineteenth century

Abstract

This paper is based mostly on gossip – deliberately so, for gossip can reveal details of the private lives of people who are otherwise lost to history. Usually it is not possible to identify them, but even if this is not possible a great deal of the social life of the community (mostly of its younger members) can be uncovered. No startling revelations are made, for residents (and visitors) behaved in predictable ways. After covering thematically the ways in which people interacted, the gossip mostly dealing with flirting and marriage, some examples of private lives (or rather, portions of these lives) are reconstructed.