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Households and families in pre-industrial Sweden

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Christer Lundh
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Continuity and Change , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , May 1995 , pp. 33 - 68
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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References

ENDNOTES

1 Laslett, P., The world we have lost (London, 1965).Google Scholar

2 For an overview of earlier sociological research regarding traditional family forms, see Anderson, M., Approaches to the history of the Western family (London, 1980)Google Scholar, and Goode, W. J., World revolution and family patterns (New York, 1963).Google Scholar

3 Laslett, , The world we have lost, 91.Google Scholar

4 See Laslett, P. and Wall, R. eds., Household and family in past time (Cambridge, 1972).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 For his basic critique of Laslett's method, see his review of the contribution to the Cambridge conference in Berkner, L. K., ‘The use and misuse of census data for the historical analysis of family structure’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History 5 (1975), 721–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Berkner, L. K., ‘The stem family and the developmental cycle of the peasant household: an eighteenth-century Austrian example’, American Historical Review 77 (1972), 405.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 Goode illustrated the variations surrounding family structure and size by pointing out that only half of all families in the US in 1960 could be defined as nuclear, even though one accepts that that form was dominant at the time. See Goode, W. J., The family (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1964).Google Scholar

8 See Johansen, H. C., ‘The position of the old in the rural household in a traditional society’, Scandinavian Economic History Review 24 (1976), 129–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 Wachter, K. W., Hammel, E. and Laslett, P., Statistical studies of historical social structure (New York, 1978).Google Scholar

10 Hajnal, J., ‘European marriage patterns in perspective’, in Glass, D. V. and Eversley, D. E. C. eds., Population in history: essays in historical demography (London, 1965), 101–43.Google Scholar

11 See Mitterauer, M., ‘Familiengrösse-Familientypen-Familienzyklus. Probleme quantitativer Auswertung von österreichischem Quellenmaterial’, Geschichte und Gesellschaft 1 (1975), 226–55.Google Scholar

12 Berkner, , ‘The stem family’, 418.Google Scholar

13 Odén, B., ‘Individual time horizons’, Meddelande, 7. Department of History, Lund University (Lund, 1975), 6–9.Google Scholar

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15 Odén, B., ‘En historiker ser på vården av äldre i gången tid’, in Odén, B., De äldre i samhället- Förr. Fem föreläsningar (Uppsala, 1985), 7–20Google Scholar; Odén, B.,‘En introduktion’ (to Chapter IV), in Odén, B., Svanborg, A. and Tornstam, L. eds., Äldre i samhallet-förr, nu och i framtiden. Vol. 2: Probleminventeringar (Stockholm, 1983), 125–36Google Scholar; Gaunt, D., ‘Den pensionerade jordbrukaren: dennes egendom och familjeförhållanden sedan medeltiden: norra och centrala Europa’, in Odén, Svanborg and Tornstam, eds., Äldre i samhället, 137–67Google Scholar; Löfgren, O., ‘Family and household among Scandinavian peasants’, Ethnologia Scandinavia 4 (1974), 17–52Google Scholar; Löfgren, O., ‘Familj och hushåll, in Land och stad (Lund, 1977), 227–84.Google Scholar For reference to historical demographic works, see Table 1.

16 Research projects which have produced a number of reports are ‘The family history project’ at Uppsala University and the interdisciplinary study ‘Elderly in our society: past, present, and future’ at Lund University.

17 Sundin, B., Hemmet, gatan, fabriken eller skolan: folkundervisning och barnuppfostran i svenska städer 1600–1850 (Lund, 1986)Google Scholar, and Olsson, L., Då barn blev lönsamma. Om arbetsdelning, barnarbete och teknologiska förändringar i några svenska industrier under 1800-talet och början av 1900-talet (Lund, 1983).Google Scholar

18 Kjellman, G., De gamlas bostad-fattig-åldringskulturen. En etnologisk studie av åldringsvård och institutionsväsende i agrarsamhället (Lund, 1981).Google Scholar

19 Gaunt, ‘Den pensionerade jordbrukaren’; Gaunt, D., ‘I slottets skugga. Om frälsebönders sociala problem i Borgeby och Löddeköpinge under 1700-talet’, Ale 2 (1977), 15–30Google Scholar; and Odén, ‘En introduktion’.

20 Excluding the Scania study described below.

21 Berkner, L. K., ‘Peasant household organization and demographic change in Lower Saxony’, in Lee, R. D. ed., Population patterns in the past (New York, 1977), 53–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and ‘The use and misuse of census data’, 738.

22 Winberg, C., ‘Familj och jord i tre västgötasocknar. Generationsskiften bland självägande bönder ca 1810–1870’, Historisk Tidskrift 3 (1981), 279.Google Scholar

23 Löfgren, O., ‘Family and household among Scandinavian peasants’, 27–30, 34–46.Google Scholar

24 Ibid., 34–44.

25 Winberg, , ‘Familj och jord i tre västgötasocknar’, 308–9.Google Scholar

26 Laslett, , The world we have lost, 96.Google Scholar

27 Berkner, , ‘The use and misuse of census data’, 737–8.Google Scholar

28 Gaunt, D., ‘Pre-industrial economy and population structure’, Scandinavian Journal of History 2 (1977), 208–10CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gaunt, D., ‘Natural resources - population - local society: the case of pre-industrial Sweden’, in Sundin, J. and Soderlund, E. eds., Time, space and man (Uppsala, 1979), 81–92Google Scholar; Gaunt, D.,‘Familjemönstren präglas av miljöns villkor’, Forskning och Framsteg 5–6 (1977), 18–22.Google Scholar

29 Winberg, C., Folkökning och proletarisering (Partille, 1975), 191–210Google Scholar; Eriksson, I. and Rogers, J., Rural labour and population change. Social and demographic development in east-central Sweden during the nineteenth century (Uppsala, 1978), 146–71.Google Scholar

30 Winberg, Fölkokning och proletarisering, 191–210.Google Scholar

31 Gaunt, , ‘Pre-industrial economy and population structure’, 209Google Scholar; Löfgren, , ‘Family and household among Scandinavian peasants’, 27–8.Google Scholar

32 Gaunt, , ‘Pre-industrial economy and population structure’, 198–204, 207–10.Google Scholar See also Gaunt, D., ‘Familj, hushåll och arbetsintensitet’, Scandia 42 (1976), 32–59Google Scholar; Gaunt, D., ‘Household typology: problems-methods-results’, in Åkerman, Johansen and Gaunt, eds., Chance and change, 69–83.Google Scholar

33 Sundin, J., ‘Family building in paternalistic proto-industries: a cohort study from nineteenth-century Swedish iron foundries’, Journal of Family History 14 (1989), 281–289CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sundin, J. and Tedebrand, L.-G., ‘Swedish blacksmiths in the nineteenth century: individual and collective life histories’, in Brändström, A. and Sundin, J. eds., Tradition and transition: studies in micro-demography and social change (Kungälv, 1981), 161–86.Google Scholar See also the article by Göran Rydén in this number of Continuity and Change.

34 Bengtsson, T. and Lundh, C., ‘Life events in a peasant society in transition: causes of population change in Scania, 1660–1860’, Lund Papers in Economic History 1 (1990).Google Scholar

35 Bengtsson, T. and Lundh, C.,‘Evaluation of a Swedish computer program for automatic family reconstitution’, Lund Papers in Economic History 8 (1991).Google Scholar

36 Including those who leased the land from the crown, whose conditions were similar to the freeholders.

37 The term ‘lodger’ is used in Swedish poll-tax registers to label members of the household who were not included in the nuclear family or hired servants. The information was occasionally more detailed, with names or notes identifying the lodger as a mother or father of the head of the household or his wife. This information allows us to form an idea of how widespread the retirement system was, and the extent to which extended families existed.

38 Åkerman, S., ‘A demographic study of a pre-transitional society’, in Åkerman, Johansen and Gaunt, eds., Chance and change, 42Google Scholar; Gaunt, D.,‘Family planning and the pre-industrial society: some Swedish evidence’, in Aristocrats, farmers and proletarians (Uppsala, 1973), 41.Google Scholar

39 Berkner, , ‘The stem family’, 406.Google Scholar

40 Thorner, D., Kerblay, B. and Smith, R. E. F. eds., Chayanov on the theory of the peasant economy (Homewood, Illinois, 1966), 55–66.Google Scholar

41 Berkner, , ‘The stem family’, 413–18.Google Scholar

42 Adapted from Frankling, S. H., The European peasantry: the final phase (London, 1969).Google Scholar

43 This age distribution and the assumptions deviate somewhat from Berkner's/Franklin's. In that model it is assumed that peasant householders, sons over 20 years of age and servants each represent 1 labout unit, while peasant wives and daughters over 20 years of age each represent 0.8 of a labour unit. During the childbearing years, denned as the first 12 years after marriage, the labour contribution of the wives is assumed to be somewhat lower, at 0.4 of a labour unit. Children younger than 12 years are assumed not to contribute at all to the household's labour force, while children 12–20 years of age each represent 0.5 of a labour unit.

My own assumptions deviate in three ways from Berkner's/Franklin's. First, the childbearing years are not denned as the first 12 years after the marriage, but as those years when the woman actually did give birth to a child. Secondly, I assume that male and female labour were not supplementary on the farm since the working tasks were strictly divided between the sexes. Therefore it seems more reasonable to assume that both grown men and women each represent 1 labour unit. Thirdly, it seems reasonable to assume that younger children and elderly people also contributed to the household's labour force, and that young men and women had the same working capacity as adults.

44 It is assumed that the household's producer-consumer ratio gives a brief indication of the standard of living at different phases of the family life cycle. Even though the calculations of both the household's production capacity and its consumption needs are based on the number in residence by age, the standard of living might vary because of the uneven distribution of labour capacity and consumption needs over the life cycle. Adults usually produce more or at least as much as they consume, while small children, elderly people, pregnant and breastfeeding women and sick people depend on others for their daily bread.