Three kinds of preindustrial household formation system in historical Eastern Europe: A challenge to spatial patterns of the European family

In their modelling and classificatory ventures western scholars have usually mistakenly included family forms in historical Eastern Europe by induction in well-established generalizations about Russian or Balkan populations. At the same time, well into the late 1990s, most of Eastern European historians have shown no interest in studying domestic groups in socio-historical perspective. This article attempts to restate that picture through a thorough analysis of an unprecedented collection of historical household data for the late eighteenth-century Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, one of the largests political entities in Europe of that time. Through an application of a variety of methodologies three regional family patterns have been distinguished on the historical Polish territories, their main characteristics described and then juxtaposed against the major features of paradigmatic examples of the ‘Eastern European family type’. The results indicate that the existing models of household systems in preindustrial Europe are far too rigid to meet the diversity of residential patterns of the Eastern European serfs. Analysis of the data set on spatially, culturally and socioeconomically diverse regions has also facilitated a preliminary identification of the factors shaping these family systems. The data presented here suggests that the conventional wisdom regarding the institutional mechanisms of the Eastern European manorialism of the second serfdom as sufficient to create a homogenous pattern of family residence must be seriously questioned. In particular, what must be meticulously revised is a sweeping generalization still in practice that posits a functional link between coercive forms of labor control and complex household structures among peasant subjects.     

Historical family systems and contemporary developmental outcomes: what is to be gained from the historical census microdata revolution?

Recent years have witnessed a growing interest in the role of the historical family as the instigator of disparate developmental trajectories. However, a major challenge faced by these studies was that they had to work around a lack of reliable historical data. This study demonstrates how embarking on the recent outburst of historical microdata infrastructures may help to improve these explorations by suggesting additional statistics and a derived measure (the Patriarchy Index) that might prove useful in future efforts aimed at assessing the effect of historical family organization on comparative development. The added value of that endeavour is assessed by comparing the predictive validity of the PI for contemporary developmental gradients against a composite indicator of family organization previously used by economic historians (Carmichael’s ‘Female Friendliness Index’). The results indicate that conclusions about the relationship between historical family organization and various societal outcomes may be sensitive to the measure used. Based on the evidence presented in this paper, it is argued that one of the reasons why the potential importance of historical family for contemporary developmental disparities has not been convincingly unravelled could be inadequacy of data and indicators so far employed to assess historical family formations. To the extent that the Patriarchy Index would be taken up by wider scholarly circles as an indicator of historical family organization it could help unravel potentially new associations between past and present, at least as far as Europe is concerned.     

Stem families in rural northwestern Germany? Family systems,intergenerational relations and family contracts

The article investigates intergenerational social relations, distribution of power and mutual rights and obligations within rural families in nineteenth-century Westphalia. Following Frédéric Le Play and Wilhelm Heinrich Riehl, historiography assumes the predominance of a stem family system in northwestern Germany. However, the definition of ‘stem family’ is still not well determined to date. In particular, the question of paternal authority pertains to the core concept of stem families, but has received rather little attention in historical research. The article argues that there are good reasons to question the adequacy of the notion of ‘stem family’ for northwestern Germany. Using farm and house transfer contracts as qualitative sources, the strong position of farm heirs will be demonstrated. These contracts settled relationships between family members after intergenerational transition, especially for different types of family composition. Ageing parents were confronted with children having alternative options to make a living and had to make far-reaching concessions if they wanted a child to stay and work or respectively care for them. Even parents who still wanted to manage the farm on their own gave up the property rights in order to keep a son or a daughter as labour force and care-taker on the farm. This points to considerable bargaining power of adult children, and strongly diminished parental authority even in multiple households.     

“There is no end to relationship among the indians”

This article presents an overview of the Ojibwa family over the past three centuries, from early European contacts to the present. It emphasizes the extent to which Ojibwa familial relations have long been embedded in extensive networks of kin that played major roles in the family lives of individuals of all ages. The article traces the effects of historical change on the Ojibwa family and examines continuity within Ojibwa kinship relations. The changes of the last century have taken a heavy toll on these relationships, yet, where they persist or are being revived, they are sources of strength and renewal.     

“There is no end to relationship among the indians”: Ojibwa Families and Kinship in Historical Perspective

This article presents an overview of the Ojibwa family over the past three centuries, from early European contacts to the present. It emphasizes the extent to which Ojibwa familial relations have long been embedded in extensive networks of kin that played major roles in the family lives of individuals of all ages. The article traces the effects of historical change on the Ojibwa family and examines continuity within Ojibwa kinship relations. The changes of the last century have taken a heavy toll on these relationships, yet, where they persist or are being revived, they are sources of strength and renewal.     

Labor power,social and economic differentials,and adaptive strategies of peasant households in stem-family regions of Spain

The stem family was the predominant form of family organization in the regions of Spain stretching from the Pyrenees to the Ebro River. In this area rural domestic groups were larger and had greater labor power than in those where nuclear family organization prevailed. The major conclusion to be drawn from this article is that where the stem family predominated, small peasant farmers and those with no property were the predominant social groups. Socially differentiated behavior patterns have been found to exist in stem-family areas due mainly to the size of farms and to the existence of adaptive strategies closely related to wealth. These strategies were mitigated by a surplus of labor power, mainly among families with smaller farms. Households with little land were able to find complementary sources of income in livestock, in exploiting communal forests and grazing lands, in becoming day laborers or domestic servants, or through working in rural transformation industries.     

From a child's point of view: Intergenerational influences on the organization of household and labor

That household strategies bear directly on the lives of individual household members is a much-stated fact. That household strategies have profound long-term effects on the options and choices made by individual household members also has received much less attention. By focusing on intergenerational relations within the context of households, this article brings to light certain long-term effects which household relations have on the lives of adult children in terms of the organization of their domestic and laboring lives. The article shows that the decisions pertaining to household organization and development of labor strategies are heavily influenced by individual, personal evaluations of the quality of long-term moral and emotional relations across generations.     

From a child''s point of view: Intergenerational influences on the organization of household and labor

That household strategies bear directly on the lives of individual household members is a much-stated fact. That household strategies have profound long-term effects on the options and choices made by individual household members also has received much less attention. By focusing on intergenerational relations within the context of households, this article brings to light certain long-term effects which household relations have on the lives of adult children in terms of the organization of their domestic and laboring lives. The article shows that the decisions pertaining to household organization and development of labor strategies are heavily influenced by individual, personal evaluations of the quality of long-term moral and emotional relations across generations.     

Democratic accountability and the changing European political order

This article is about democratic accountability and a Europe struggling to find viable answers to the questions of who and what shall constitute “Europe” and how to develop legitimate political institutions for governing it. The article is, nevertheless, first and foremost about political order and change, rules for living together, the role of democratic politics in society and the relations between political organization and civilized coexistence, and the study of the political. Modern democracies live with unresolved conflict, and accountability regimes are part of an institutional arrangement for preserving order and continuity and also for creating dynamics and change. Accountability processes take place within settled and unsettled orders, and they affect and are affected by existing orders. Without denying the importance of contending interests, power struggles, strategic behaviour, non‐cooperative games, and (re)distributional battles, attention is directed towards the search for unity, political cohesion and solidarity based upon the informed voluntary consent of the people through reflection and reasoned deliberation among individuals with different values, interests, understandings and resources.     

明清家族司法探析

明清时期国家注意对乡里社会的控制,鼓励各地家族在自己的谱牒中制定约束族人的规范,并赋予家族尊长对这些规范进行裁断和强制执行的权力,家族司法由此产生并发展。此时期的家族法规对家族内部的司法组织、辅助人员、管辖、告诉、审断、执行等主要制度和程序都有所规范,地方官府也在不同程度上承认其司法效力。家族司法有着鲜明的特点,对古代国家州县一级的司法活动产生了重要的影响。     

Fighting Families: Family Characteristics Associated with Domestic Violence in Five Latin American Countries

This study uses data from Demographic and Health Surveys (DHSs) to examine the relationship between familial characteristics and the likelihood of experiencing domestic violence in Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Peru. Logistic regression techniques are used to measure relationships between marital status, family size, partner alcohol use, socioeconomic status (SES), decision-making power, and education homogamy and the likelihood of experiencing partner violence. Cohabitation, female-dominant decision making, and partner alcohol are positively associated with domestic violence across datasets. Family size, SES, and education homogamy emerged as statistically significant in some, but not all of the datasets. This study helps clarify the profile of the abused Latina and also tests the applicability of current abuse research to a non-Western setting.While numerous forms of aggression are incorporated into the term domestic violence, the present study focuses exclusively on domestic violence involving physical abuse between heterosexual partners.     

Family Closeness and Domestic Abuse Among Caribbean and South American Women in South Florida

This paper focuses on the importance of family member closeness as a protective factor against domestic abuse. We explore the link between long-lasting relations within the family and intra-familial violence perpetrated against women in Latino households in South Florida. We use data from an Inter-generational Transmission of Drug Use between Latina Mothers and Daughters (ITDMD) study. The study includes data on family relations and domestic abuse. We estimate a series of multivariate regressions to obtain the probability of abuse against women, the types of abuse inflicted and the relationship with the abusers. Our results indicate that among abused women, the effects of long-lasting relations within the family differ depending on the type of relationship between the abuser and the victim and the degree of closeness the victim feels towards other family members. Given these findings, there is a need to further study family relations and abuse in Latino households.     

From ecotypes to sociotypes: Peasant household and state-building in the alps,sixteenth–nineteenth centuries

Ecological arguments have long been used in research to explain the forms of peasant households. In the rich family literature concerning the European Alps they hold a particularly prominent position. Using alpine macro- and microdata, the article shows that the proposed ecological models do not hold up under scrutiny, and that sociopolitical approaches are more effective. An investigation of three regions from different parts of the Alps indicates that accelerated state-building started a process of differentiation in the sixteenth century. Relations between the private and the public domains took on specific forms, and this development affected domestic power relations in peasant households.     

Strong and weak family ties revisited: reconsidering European family structures from a network perspective

Family systems appear to be an important factor framing people's individual behavior. Thus far, family systems have been primarily addressed on a macro regional level with indirect measures. Revisiting Reher (1998) and the family ties criterion, the main question of this paper is to examine to what extent we perceive family structures differently in Europe by taking direct measures of the structures of people's broader social networks into consideration. Based on the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), we derived two indicators of family regimes based on individual-level data regarding the density of ego social networks: contact frequency and geographic proximity among network members. We aggregated these data and mapped them on the NUTS 2 level regions for various locations in Europe. The results of our analyses exhibit that, based on these two network indicators, significant differences in family structures between European regions exist. These results confirm the classification of strong family Southern and comparatively weaker family Northern European regions to a large extent, though substantial regional differences in and between countries are also revealed. Our findings demonstrate that the classification of European regions largely depends on which indicator of network density we consider. This is particularly obvious in the Eastern European regions where the classification markedly differs according to the type of network indicator. Intriguingly, social networks in Central European regions can be characterized as rather loose, often even looser than the ‘traditional’ weak ties in Scandinavia. Family regimes can, therefore, be regarded as a construct of multiple dimensions of which one dimension may be classified as weak while the other can be strong at the same time.     

‘Citizens’ and ‘Foreigners’ in EU Law. Migration Law and its Cosmopolitan Outlook

Migration has become a controversial subject across Europe and beyond. At the same time, the EU has built up an impressive set of rules for third‐country nationals over the past two decades, which—unlike the mobility of EU citizens—received comparatively little attention apart from immigration and asylum specialists. This contribution presents the constitutional framework for ‘migration law’ towards third‐country nationals and shows in how far they depart from the paradigm of intra‐European mobility. It will be argued that differences can be rationalised by divergent objectives and do, nonetheless, not present a move towards ‘fortress Europe’. EU migration law maintains the distinction between citizens and foreigners at the same time as it protects migrants, including refugees. By accommodating migrants' rights and self‐government, EU migration law can be construed as an endeavour to replace traditional notions of alienage with constitutional rules with a cosmopolitan outlook.     

The Jews of early modern Marburg, 1640s—1800: A case study in family and household organization

This article examines Jewish household and family organization in a middle-sized German city, the Upper Hessian regional center of Marburg, the population of which ranged from 2500 to 6000 from the Thirty Years War to the end of the 18th century. Some general hypotheses about population development, household structure, and family life conveniently summarized by Toch [Toch, M. (1995). Aspects of stratification in early modern German Jewry: Population history and village Jews. In R. P. Hsia & H. Lehmann (Eds.). In and out of the ghetto: Jewish-Gentile relations in late medieval and early modern Germany (pp. 77-89). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press] serve as an organizational frame for the case study. In Toch's view, Jews' comparative wealth, as well as governmental restrictions on their settlement and marriage in central Europe, led to their having larger and more complex households than those of the Christian majority. While household enumerations over time confirm several of Toch's observations, especially the larger size of Jewish families, neither Hessian settlement policy nor local Marburg opposition prevented the Jewish minority of about 1% from keeping pace with general population growth. Moreover, Jews did not respond to their regulated living conditions and status as cultural outsiders with a family organization exhibiting remarkably more internal complexity than did Christian households.     

An Exploratory Analysis of Florida Law Enforcement Domestic Violence Policies

The high social cost of domestic violence has caught the attention of lawmakers and criminal justice agency administrators across the country. As public awareness and concern over the incidence of domestic violence has risen, domestic violence legislation has focused on, among other things, the law enforcement response to domestic violence. The purpose of this study is to examine Florida law enforcement agency response to domestic violence by analyzing agency standard operating procedures (SOPs) across measures identified in the Florida Model Policy for Domestic Violence. Utilizing content analysis, the authors identify agency policy mandates including the number of officers responding to the scene, the use of specialized units, availability of victim advocates, and procedures for investigation.     

The Jews of early modern Marburg, 1640s—1800

This article examines Jewish household and family organization in a middle-sized German city, the Upper Hessian regional center of Marburg, the population of which ranged from 2500 to 6000 from the Thirty Years War to the end of the 18th century. Some general hypotheses about population development, household structure, and family life conveniently summarized by Toch [Toch, M. (1995). Aspects of stratification in early modern German Jewry: Population history and village Jews. In R. P. Hsia & H. Lehmann (Eds.). In and out of the ghetto: Jewish-Gentile relations in late medieval and early modern Germany (pp. 77-89). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press] serve as an organizational frame for the case study. In Toch's view, Jews' comparative wealth, as well as governmental restrictions on their settlement and marriage in central Europe, led to their having larger and more complex households than those of the Christian majority. While household enumerations over time confirm several of Toch's observations, especially the larger size of Jewish families, neither Hessian settlement policy nor local Marburg opposition prevented the Jewish minority of about 1% from keeping pace with general population growth. Moreover, Jews did not respond to their regulated living conditions and status as cultural outsiders with a family organization exhibiting remarkably more internal complexity than did Christian households.     

政体演化的历史类型——一种理想类型方法论的视角

政体演化的理想类型与法的现象历史演进模式密切关联。划分政体的历史类型的标准是政体赖以建立的社会经济结构及其人与人之间的关系模式。人类社会的政权组织形式可以划分为集权政体、分权政体和整合型政体三种理想政体类型。建立在自然经济和人对人的依赖关系基础之上的政权组织形式是集权政体类型;建立在商品经济和人对物的依赖关系基础上的政权组织形式是分权政体,而整合政体则表现为古希腊的雅典民主政体、古罗马共和政体以及初级阶段社会主义的人民代表大会政体。     

Ukrainian-Russian Relations—European and Eurasian Contexts

In terms of civilization and culture, Ukraine is both a European and a Eurasian state with priorities—Russia and the West—determined by foreign and by domestic factors. Ukraine's unnatural, contradictory, and dual-vectored foreign policy, the object of bitter discussion and criticism for several years, is influenced by complex patterns of postcommunist reforms that are creating a new geopolitical reality and by the impact on it of two different regions—Greater Europe and Eastern Europe. Russia's special role in these processes is obvious. The foreign policy of the two states and Ukrainian-Russian relations largely determine both the nature and the pace of change in the eastern part of the continent, as well as the chances of achieving stability and optimal conditions for cooperation throughout Europe.