Historical Anthropology of the Family

334 Pages·1986·13.61 MB·English

by  Martine Segalen

This historical anthropology of the family represents a new departure
in family studies. Over the past ten years or so, the social scientific
sociological analysis of the family has undergone a change, and has
been obliged to reconsider its traditional view that industrialisation
triggered a shift within society from the 'large family', which fulfilled
all social functions from socialising the children to caring for the sick
and the old, to the modern nuclear family, which was regarded solely
as being the locus for emotional relationships. Historians have shown
that in the past there was in fact a great variety of different family
structures within a wide range of varying demographic, economic and
cultural frameworks, distinctive for each society. At the same time,
the interaction between sociology and social anthropology has led to
a clearer conceptual analysis of that vague, polysemic term 'family';
and notions of dwelling-place, descent, marriage, the relative roles
of husband and wife and parent-child relations, as well as the more
general relations between generations, have in a variety of past and
present social contexts been taken apart and analysed. In this book,
Martine Segalen reviews and synthesises a rich wealth of often little-
known European and North American historical and social anthro-
pological material on the family. This results in a reversal of the fre-
quently held view of the family as an institution in decline, showing
it instead to be both dynamic and resistant.

Historical anthropology of the family
Themes in the
Social Sciences
Editors: Jack Goody & Geoffrey Hawthorn
The aim of this series is to publish books that will focus on topics of
general and interdisciplinary interest in the social sciences. They will
be concerned with non-European cultures and with developing
countries, as well as with industrial societies. The emphasis will be
on comparative sociology and, initially, on sociological, anthropo-
logical, and demographic topics. These books are intended for un-
dergraduate teaching, but not as basic introductions to the subjects
they cover. Authors have been asked to write on central aspects of
current interest that have a wide appeal to teachers and research
students, as well as to undergraduates.
Other books in the series
Edmund Leach: Culture and Communication: the logic by which symbols
are connected: an introduction to the use of structuralist analysis in
social anthropology
Anthony Heath: Rational Choice and Social Exchange: a critique of ex-
change theory
P. Abrams and A. McCulloch: Communes, Sociology and Society
Jack Goody: The Domestication of the Savage Mind
Jean-Louis Flandrin: Families in Former Times: kinship, household and
sexuality
John Dunn: Western Political Theory in the Face of the Future
David Thomas: Naturalism and Social Science: a post-empiricist philoso-
phy of social science
Claude Meillassoux: Maidens, Meal and Money: capitalism and the do-
mestic community
David Lane: Leninism: a sociological interpretation
Anthony D. Smith: The Ethnic Revival
Jack Goody: Cooking, Cuisine and Class
Roy Ellen: Environment, Subsistence and System
S. N. Eisenstadt and L. Roniger: Patrons, Clients and Friends: interper-
sonal relations and the structure of trust in society
John Dunn: The Politics of Socialism
Historical anthropology
of the family
MARTINE SEGALEN
Translated by J.C. WHITEHOUSE and SARAH MATTHEWS
CAMBRIDGE
UNIVERSITY PRESS
Published by the Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge
The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB21RP
40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011-4211, USA
10 Stamford Road, Oakleigh, Melbourne 3166, Australia
© Cambridge University Press 1986
First published 1986
Reprinted 1988,1993,1994,1996
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publkation Data is available.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 0-521-25704-2 hardback
ISBN 0-521-27670-5 paperback
Transferred to digital printing 2002
Contents
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Foreword page ix
INTRODUCTION 1
Talking about the family: paradoxes and contradictions 1
The sociology of the family: where history and
anthropology meet 3
The aim and scope of this work 6
Suggested reading 8
Part One: The area of kinship 11
1 THE DOMESTIC GROUP 13
The large peasant family 14
The domestic group in the past: size and structure 20
The instability of the old domestic group 31
Recent developments 37
Domestic groups and kin relationships 39
Suggested reading 40
2 KINSHIP AND KINSHIP GROUPS 43
The terminology of kinship 45
Filiation 46
Marriage 56
Lines and kindred groups in peasant societies 61
Suggested reading 71
3 KIN RELATIONSHIPS IN URBAN SOCIETY 73
Social and kinship change 73
Lines and kindred groups in contemporary society 80
Kinship group versus nuclear family: an ideological
position 103
Suggested reading 103
Contents
Part Two: The making of the domestic group 105
4 THE HISTORICAL SOCIOLOGY OF MARRIAGE 107
From alliance to marriage 108
Towards contemporary marriage 132
Suggested reading 137
5 MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY 139
Marriages 139
Choosing a partner: who marries whom? 143
Love, a social force of reproduction 147
Cohabitation and the younger generation 148
Divorce 151
Suggested reading 158
6 THE CHILD AND THE FAMILY 159
Towards a norm of two children 160
The diverse and changing nature of parental
relationships 173
The family life cycle 181
New kinds of parents and children? 183
Suggested reading 196
Part Three: Domestic roles and activities 199
7 ROLES WITHIN THE COUPLE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 201
A complex problem 201
Peasant households 204
Artisans' and shopkeepers' households 210
Working-class households 212
Bourgeois households 218
Suggested reading 221
8 ROLES WITHIN THE PRESENT-DAY COUPLE 223
Sociological role theories 223
Factors leading to changes in roles 227
The contemporary couple 244
Suggested reading 255
9 THE DOMESTIC GROUP AND ECONOMIC ROLES 257
The domestic group as an income unit and a consumption
unit 258
The domestic group and inheritance 273
Suggested reading 285
vi
Contents
10 FAMILY AND SOCIETY 286
The family and social control 287
The family and social power 293
Women in the family and in society 298
The family and social destiny 304
Suggested reading 306
Notes 309
Index 323
Vll