Rethinking complex households: The case of the Western Pyrenean 'Houses'

Continuity and Change

Volumn 11, Issue 2, 1996, Pages 191-215

  Verdon, Michel ^a  

^a UNIVERSITÉ DE MONTRÉAL   (Canada)

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EID: 5844381681     PISSN: 02684160     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/s0268416000003313     Document Type: Article

References (81)

1. As will become clearer as the text unfolds, the Western Pyreneans have developed what I would be tempted to call a 'House complex'. Indeed, in common parlance they speak of the 'maison ' not as a dwelling-unit, but as the dwelling-unit, together with its resident members and the patrimonial property attached to it, to the extent that all social identification is linked first and foremost to the house. This is why I chose to distinguish it from the mere dwelling-unit by using the upper-case 'H'.
2. Which he also calls 'famille communautaire', or 'communal family'.
3. F. Le Play, L'organisation de la famille, 2nd edn (Tours, 1907), 28.
4. E. Demolins, 'L'état actuel de la science sociale d'après les travaux de ces dix dernières années', La Science Sociale 15 (1893).
5. P. Bourdieu, 'Célibat et condition paysanne', Etudes Rurales 5-6 (1962), 32-136; G. Augustins, 'Maison et société dans les Baronnies aux XIXe siècle', in I. Chiva et J. Goy eds., Les Baronnies des Pyrénées, vol. I (Paris, 1980), 201-14, and Comment se perpétuer? (Paris, 1989).
6. P. Bourdieu, 'Célibat et condition paysanne', Etudes Rurales 5-6 (1962), 32-136; G. Augustins, 'Maison et société dans les Baronnies aux XIXe siècle', in I. Chiva et J. Goy eds., Les Baronnies des Pyrénées, vol. I (Paris, 1980), 201-14, and Comment se perpétuer? (Paris, 1989).
7. P. Bourdieu, 'Célibat et condition paysanne', Etudes Rurales 5-6 (1962), 32-136; G. Augustins, 'Maison et société dans les Baronnies aux XIXe siècle', in I. Chiva et J. Goy eds., Les Baronnies des Pyrénées, vol. I (Paris, 1980), 201-14, and Comment se perpétuer? (Paris, 1989).
8. The Béarnais occupy the Béarn, traditionally a Gascon-speaking area immediately west of the Basque country in France. Although I will make fleeting references to the Spanish Basques, I am in fact writing about their French compatriots.
9. All over the Western Pyrenees, some centuries ago, according to Poumarède, all Western Pyrenean populations transmitted their property to the first-born (or more precisely the eldest of the children who survived to adulthood), be it a boy or girl; see J. Poumarède, Les successions dans le Sud-Ouest de la France au Moyen Age (Paris, 1972). The French write of 'aînesse absolue' or 'aînesse intégrale'. I shall similarly call it 'absolute' or 'integral' primogeniture.
10. In French the aîné(e) is the eldest child, all the others being cadets (boys) or cadettes (girls).
11. P. Rogé, Les anciens fors de Béarn (Toulouse, 1907); Coutumes (Les) de la ville et cité de Bayonne et juridiction d'icelle, approuvées, établies et confirmées par édit perpétuel, et autorisées par arrêt de la cour du Parlement de Bourdeaux du 9 juin 1514 (Bayonne, 1773).
12. P. Rogé, Les anciens fors de Béarn (Toulouse, 1907); Coutumes (Les) de la ville et cité de Bayonne et juridiction d'icelle, approuvées, établies et confirmées par édit perpétuel, et autorisées par arrêt de la cour du Parlement de Bourdeaux du 9 juin 1514 (Bayonne, 1773).
13. J. Poumarède, Les successions dans le Sud-Ouest de la France au Moyen Age (Paris, 1972), 207; E. Cheysson, 'Epilogue' in Le Play, L'organisation de la famille, 266; R. Bonnain, 'Droit écrit, coutume pyrénéenne et pratiques successorales dans les Baronnies, 1769-1836', in I. Chiva and J. Goy eds., Les Baronnies des Pyrénées, vol. II (Paris, 1986), 170.
14. J. Poumarède, Les successions dans le Sud-Ouest de la France au Moyen Age (Paris, 1972), 207; E. Cheysson, 'Epilogue' in Le Play, L'organisation de la famille, 266; R. Bonnain, 'Droit écrit, coutume pyrénéenne et pratiques successorales dans les Baronnies, 1769-1836', in I. Chiva and J. Goy eds., Les Baronnies des Pyrénées, vol. II (Paris, 1986), 170.
15. J. Poumarède, Les successions dans le Sud-Ouest de la France au Moyen Age (Paris, 1972), 207; E. Cheysson, 'Epilogue' in Le Play, L'organisation de la famille, 266; R. Bonnain, 'Droit écrit, coutume pyrénéenne et pratiques successorales dans les Baronnies, 1769-1836', in I. Chiva and J. Goy eds., Les Baronnies des Pyrénées, vol. II (Paris, 1986), 170.
16. P. P. Viazzo, Upland communities: environment, population and social structure in the Alps since the sixteenth century (Cambridge, 1989).
17. There is a consensus on this idea of overpopulation. Soulet mentions it for the whole of the Pyrenees as early as the end of the eighteenth century (J. F. Soulet, Les Pyrénées au XIXe siècle (Toulouse, 1987), 143); Augustins writes that the Baronnies have been overpopulated for centuries, but most especially in the nineteenth century (G. Augustins, 'Maison et société dans les Baronnies au XIXe siècle', in Chiva and Goy eds., Les Baronnies, vol. I, 13, 21); and, for the county of Bigorre, Berthe speaks of overpopulation as early as the fourteenth century (M. Berthe, Le Comté de Bigorre: un milieu rural au bas Moyen Age (Paris, 1976), 41, 46).
18. There is a consensus on this idea of overpopulation. Soulet mentions it for the whole of the Pyrenees as early as the end of the eighteenth century (J. F. Soulet, Les Pyrénées au XIXe siècle (Toulouse, 1987), 143); Augustins writes that the Baronnies have been overpopulated for centuries, but most especially in the nineteenth century (G. Augustins, 'Maison et société dans les Baronnies au XIXe siècle', in Chiva and Goy eds., Les Baronnies, vol. I, 13, 21); and, for the county of Bigorre, Berthe speaks of overpopulation as early as the fourteenth century (M. Berthe, Le Comté de Bigorre: un milieu rural au bas Moyen Age (Paris, 1976), 41, 46).
19. There is a consensus on this idea of overpopulation. Soulet mentions it for the whole of the Pyrenees as early as the end of the eighteenth century (J. F. Soulet, Les Pyrénées au XIXe siècle (Toulouse, 1987), 143); Augustins writes that the Baronnies have been overpopulated for centuries, but most especially in the nineteenth century (G. Augustins, 'Maison et société dans les Baronnies au XIXe siècle', in Chiva and Goy eds., Les Baronnies, vol. I, 13, 21); and, for the county of Bigorre, Berthe speaks of overpopulation as early as the fourteenth century (M. Berthe, Le Comté de Bigorre: un milieu rural au bas Moyen Age (Paris, 1976), 41, 46).
20. A. Fauve-Chamoux, 'Le fonctionnement de la famille-souche dans les Baronnies des Pyrénées avant 1914', Annales de démographie historique (1987), 253.
21. According to Antoinette Fauve-Chamoux, this matrimonial regime came into existence as early as 1650 (Fauve-Chamoux, 'Le fonctionnement', 260-1).
22. Augustins, 'Maison et société' and Comment se perpétuer? Admittedly, Antoinette Fauve-Chamoux's excellent analyses of the census have established beyond doubt both the existence and the frequency of stem families (see A. Fauve-Chamoux, 'Les structures familiales au royaume des familles-souches: Esparros', Annales E.S.C. 30 (1984), 513-28; 'Le fonctionnement' ; and 'Les frontières de l'autorégulation paysanne: croissance et famille-souche', Revue de la Bibliothèque Nationale 50 (1993), 38-47). Her work, however, follows in the wake of the purely empirical debates inspired by Laslett: do stem families in this region represent the limit of growth of residential groups? Undoubtedly so. Apart from her more demographic approach, the ethnography of this area nonetheless links the stem family to a host of other practices, all apparently forming a coherent system and therefore subsumed under the logic of 'House systems'.
23. Augustins, 'Maison et société' and Comment se perpétuer? Admittedly, Antoinette Fauve-Chamoux's excellent analyses of the census have established beyond doubt both the existence and the frequency of stem families (see A. Fauve-Chamoux, 'Les structures familiales au royaume des familles-souches: Esparros', Annales E.S.C. 30 (1984), 513-28; 'Le fonctionnement' ; and 'Les frontières de l'autorégulation paysanne: croissance et famille-souche', Revue de la Bibliothèque Nationale 50 (1993), 38-47). Her work, however, follows in the wake of the purely empirical debates inspired by Laslett: do stem families in this region represent the limit of growth of residential groups? Undoubtedly so. Apart from her more demographic approach, the ethnography of this area nonetheless links the stem family to a host of other practices, all apparently forming a coherent system and therefore subsumed under the logic of 'House systems'.
24. Augustins, 'Maison et société' and Comment se perpétuer? Admittedly, Antoinette Fauve-Chamoux's excellent analyses of the census have established beyond doubt both the existence and the frequency of stem families (see A. Fauve-Chamoux, 'Les structures familiales au royaume des familles-souches: Esparros', Annales E.S.C. 30 (1984), 513-28; 'Le fonctionnement' ; and 'Les frontières de l'autorégulation paysanne: croissance et famille-souche', Revue de la Bibliothèque Nationale 50 (1993), 38-47). Her work, however, follows in the wake of the purely empirical debates inspired by Laslett: do stem families in this region represent the limit of growth of residential groups? Undoubtedly so. Apart from her more demographic approach, the ethnography of this area nonetheless links the stem family to a host of other practices, all apparently forming a coherent system and therefore subsumed under the logic of 'House systems'.
25. This Douglass even infers quite explicitly for the Spanish Basques; see W. A. Douglass, 'The Basque stem family household: myth or reality?', Journal of Family History 13 (1988), 83.
26. See L. Gérin, L'habitant de Saint-Justin (Ottawa, 1898).
27. That is, an area opened up to human settlement only in the last decade of the nineteenth century.
28. M. Verdon, 'The Quebec stem family revisited', in K. Ishwaran ed., Canadian families: ethnic variations (Toronto, 1980).
29. A. D. Rees, Life in a Welsh countryside (Cardiff, 1950).
30. D. Bender, 'A refinement of the concept of household: families, co-residence and domestic functions', American Anthropologist 69 (1967), 493-504; P. Laslett, 'Introduction', P. Laslett and R. Wall eds, Household and family in past time (Cambridge, 1972).
31. D. Bender, 'A refinement of the concept of household: families, co-residence and domestic functions', American Anthropologist 69 (1967), 493-504; P. Laslett, 'Introduction', P. Laslett and R. Wall eds, Household and family in past time (Cambridge, 1972).
32. M. Verdon, 'Shaking off the domestic yoke, or the sociological significance of residence', Comparative Studies in Society and History 22 (1980), 124; this article contains the full theoretical justification of this definition.
33. M. Verdon, 'Sleeping together: the dynamics of residence among the Abutia Ewe', Journal of Anthropological Research 35 (1979), 401-25.
34. M. Verdon, 'The stem family: toward a general theory', Journal of Interdisciplinary History 10 (1979), 87-105.
35. By 'normal', here, I refer to the individuals' physical, psychological, economic and demographic circumstances. If the parents are physically or mentally able to stay at home but have to be hospitalized on a permanent basis, there will be no cohabitation. Similarly, if through luck or some unexpected inheritance the children strike it rich, they will most likely abandon the parents to their own fate or pay for their care. Finally, if one or both parents die before the heir gets married, there obviously will be no cohabitation of two couples.
36. Verdon, 'The stem family'.
37. This, however, does not mean that parents did not exert control. First, living as a lumberman meant being away from home five months a year. Second, moving either to the USA or to the city involved moving to an unknown situation and often to (as in lumber camps) seasonal and badly paid jobs, and stupefying ones when it involved (as it most often did) working in factories. As for starting from scratch like the original pioneers, this did not appeal very much to sons who could inherit the father's land, a land already cleared, fenced up and ready for production. In brief, some sons brought up on the land would always prefer inheriting an already functioning farmstead to clearing new land, while, to many, the prospect of inheriting the parental property presented a much bigger attraction than did an exodus which, in the context of nineteenth-century Quebec, meant moving to the cities or the USA.
38. J. F. Ermisch and E. Overton, 'Minimal household units: a new approach to the analysis of household formation', Population Studies 39 (1985), 33-54.
39. Moreover, within the 'familial units' I will also include what I describe as 'residual' families or familial units, namely widowed women or men and their dependent children.
40. Since this axiomatique has been devised for the study of Western residence where polygyny is proscribed, it goes without saying that by 'family' or 'familial unit' I mean the group including parents and their children.
41. Except, naturally, when two 'residual familial units' seek to be united through marriage, or when a widowed man or woman seeks to marry an unmarried person.
42. On this matter, however, caution is called for. By supposing that familial units 'naturally tend to residential autonomy', we still assume that their existence demands explanation, albeit in terms of the absence of impediments to residential autonomy. As we have already explained, residential autonomy represents the familial units' 'inertial motion', so to speak, and either hindrances or constraints to that motion will bend it this or that way, towards various forms of coresidence although, as with the movement of objects on earth, hindrances and constraints which affect a household normally operate simultaneously.
43. Le Play, L'organisation, xx-xxiii.
44. Ibid., 29-30.
45. Ibid., 101; italics mine.
46. Fauve-Chamoux, 'Les frontières', 41.
47. Bonnain, 'Le mariage', 170.
48. Soulet, Les Pyrénées, 385.
49. W. Douglass, Echalar and Murelaga: opportunity and rural exodus in two Spanish Basque villages (New York, 1975), 40.
50. A. Zink, L'héritier de la maison (Paris, 1993).
51. On such implicit atomistic postulates in contemporary ethnography, see also Poumarède, Les successions, 313; A. Fine-Souriac, 'La famille-souche pyrénéenne au XIXe siècle: quelques réflexions de méthode', Annales E.S.C. 31 (1977), 484; R. Bonnain, 'Nuptialité, fécondité et pression démographique dans les Pyrénées, 1769-1836', in Chiva and Goy eds., Les Baronnies, vol. II, 98; R. Bonnain, 'Le mariage dans les Pyrénées centrales, 1769-1836', in Chiva and Goy eds., Les Baronnies, vol. II, 134; and G. Augustins, 'Maison et société', 54.
52. On such implicit atomistic postulates in contemporary ethnography, see also Poumarède, Les successions, 313; A. Fine-Souriac, 'La famille-souche pyrénéenne au XIXe siècle: quelques réflexions de méthode', Annales E.S.C. 31 (1977), 484; R. Bonnain, 'Nuptialité, fécondité et pression démographique dans les Pyrénées, 1769-1836', in Chiva and Goy eds., Les Baronnies, vol. II, 98; R. Bonnain, 'Le mariage dans les Pyrénées centrales, 1769-1836', in Chiva and Goy eds., Les Baronnies, vol. II, 134; and G. Augustins, 'Maison et société', 54.
53. On such implicit atomistic postulates in contemporary ethnography, see also Poumarède, Les successions, 313; A. Fine-Souriac, 'La famille-souche pyrénéenne au XIXe siècle: quelques réflexions de méthode', Annales E.S.C. 31 (1977), 484; R. Bonnain, 'Nuptialité, fécondité et pression démographique dans les Pyrénées, 1769-1836', in Chiva and Goy eds., Les Baronnies, vol. II, 98; R. Bonnain, 'Le mariage dans les Pyrénées centrales, 1769-1836', in Chiva and Goy eds., Les Baronnies, vol. II, 134; and G. Augustins, 'Maison et société', 54.
54. On such implicit atomistic postulates in contemporary ethnography, see also Poumarède, Les successions, 313; A. Fine-Souriac, 'La famille-souche pyrénéenne au XIXe siècle: quelques réflexions de méthode', Annales E.S.C. 31 (1977), 484; R. Bonnain, 'Nuptialité, fécondité et pression démographique dans les Pyrénées, 1769-1836', in Chiva and Goy eds., Les Baronnies, vol. II, 98; R. Bonnain, 'Le mariage dans les Pyrénées centrales, 1769-1836', in Chiva and Goy eds., Les Baronnies, vol. II, 134; and G. Augustins, 'Maison et société', 54.
55. On such implicit atomistic postulates in contemporary ethnography, see also Poumarède, Les successions, 313; A. Fine-Souriac, 'La famille-souche pyrénéenne au XIXe siècle: quelques réflexions de méthode', Annales E.S.C. 31 (1977), 484; R. Bonnain, 'Nuptialité, fécondité et pression démographique dans les Pyrénées, 1769-1836', in Chiva and Goy eds., Les Baronnies, vol. II, 98; R. Bonnain, 'Le mariage dans les Pyrénées centrales, 1769-1836', in Chiva and Goy eds., Les Baronnies, vol. II, 134; and G. Augustins, 'Maison et société', 54.
56. Soulet, Les Pyrénées, 418.
57. N. Castan, 'La criminalité familiale dans le ressort du Parlement de Toulouse (1690-1730)' in Crimes et criminalité en France sous l'Ancien Régime (Paris, 1971); Y. Castan, Honnêteté et relations sociales en Languedoc (1715-1780), (Paris, 1979); A. Collomp, La maison du père, (Paris, 1983).
58. N. Castan, 'La criminalité familiale dans le ressort du Parlement de Toulouse (1690-1730)' in Crimes et criminalité en France sous l'Ancien Régime (Paris, 1971); Y. Castan, Honnêteté et relations sociales en Languedoc (1715-1780), (Paris, 1979); A. Collomp, La maison du père, (Paris, 1983).
59. N. Castan, 'La criminalité familiale dans le ressort du Parlement de Toulouse (1690-1730)' in Crimes et criminalité en France sous l'Ancien Régime (Paris, 1971); Y. Castan, Honnêteté et relations sociales en Languedoc (1715-1780), (Paris, 1979); A. Collomp, La maison du père, (Paris, 1983).
60. A. Burguière, 'Pour une typologie des formes d'organisation domestique de l'Europe moderne', Annales E.S.C. 41 (1986), 639-55.
61. Zink, L'héritier, 137, 181-2, 197, 264; S. Ott, The circle of mountains (Oxford, 1981), 39.
62. Zink, L'héritier, 137, 181-2, 197, 264; S. Ott, The circle of mountains (Oxford, 1981), 39.
63. Zink, L'héritier, 127.
64. Ibid., 181-2, 187, 188, 485.
65. See Sandra Ott's interesting monograph for an ethnographic (and contemporary) demonstration of this equality (Ott, The circle).
66. Zink, L'héritier, 236.
67. Ibid., 191.
68. Ibid., 223.
69. Ibid., 51, 189.
70. Ibid., 189, 389, 483.
71. Ibid., 223.
72. Poumarède, Les successions, 287.
73. A. Etchelecou, Transition démographique et système coutumier dans les Pyrénées Occidentales (Paris, 1991).
74. Bonnain, 'Droit écrit', 167, 170.
75. Zink, L'héritier, 158.
76. Ibid., 223, 225.
77. Always taking into account demographic constraints, in a demographic regime in which life expectancy at birth was much lower than in the present day.
78. See J. Ermisch, 'An economic perspective on household modelling', in N. Keilman, A. Kuijsten and A. Vossen eds., Modelling household formation and dissolution (Oxford, 1988), 23-42; T. K. Burch and B. J. Matthews, 'Household formation in developed societies', Population and Development Review 13 (1987), 495-512.
79. See J. Ermisch, 'An economic perspective on household modelling', in N. Keilman, A. Kuijsten and A. Vossen eds., Modelling household formation and dissolution (Oxford, 1988), 23-42; T. K. Burch and B. J. Matthews, 'Household formation in developed societies', Population and Development Review 13 (1987), 495-512.
80. If to my knowledge all cases of stem families are found in areas with impartible inheritance to a single heir, the obverse proposition is not true. There are regions practising impartible inheritance to a single heir where stem families are absent. We may thus conclude, as I did in 1979, that this type of impartible inheritance may be a necessary condition for the emergence of stem families, but it is not a sufficient one.
81. See Augustins, Comment se perpétuer?