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Rethinking Eastern Europe: household-formation patterns in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and European family systems

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 December 2008

MIKOŁAJ SZOŁTYSEK
MIKOŁAJ SZOŁTYSEK
Affiliation:
Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure, University of Cambridge.
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Abstract

This article discusses family patterns in the vast territories of historical Poland and Lithuania at the end of the eighteenth century. It explores one of the largest collections of historical household data in Europe on pre-industrial rural settings, and applies a variety of methodologies to reveal various aspects of family systems, as well as their spatial distribution. Three regional family patterns have been distinguished in the historical Polish territories, differing both in terms of household structure and household formation rules and in terms of their marriage patterns. Analysis of the dataset on these spatially, culturally and socioeconomically diverse regions has also facilitated the preliminary identification of the factors shaping these family systems. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the data presented here suggest that the impact of second serfdom on family structure was by no means uniform, and that factors other than purely economic ones may actually have accounted for the diversity of family systems prevailing in historical Poland and Lithuania.

Type
Research Article
Information
Continuity and Change , Volume 23 , Issue 3 , December 2008 , pp. 389 - 427
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 Cambridge University Press

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References

ENDNOTES

1 Hajnal, J., ‘Two kinds of preindustrial household formation system’, Population and Development Review 8 (1982), 449–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar; P. Laslett, ‘Characteristics of the Western family considered over time’, in P. Laslett, Family life and illicit love in earlier generations: essays in historical sociology (Cambridge, 1977), 12–49; P. Laslett, ‘The stem-family hypothesis and its privileged position’, in K. W. Wachter, E. A. Hammel and P. Laslett, Statistical studies of historical social structure (New York, 1978), 89–111. See also P. Laslett, ‘Family and household as work group and kin group: areas of traditional Europe compared’, in R. Wall and J. Robin eds., Family forms in historic Europe (Cambridge, 1983), 513–63.

2 Kertzer, D. I., ‘Household history and sociological theory’, Annual Review of Sociology 17, 155–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 See E. Todd, L'enfance du monde: structures familiales et développement (Paris, 1984), The explanation of ideology: family structures and social systems (Oxford, 1985) and The causes of progress: culture, authority and change (Oxford, 1987). See also A. Macfarlane, ‘Demographic structures and cultural regions in Europe’, Current Anthropology 6 (1980), 1–17, and, more recently, Mamadouh, V., ‘A political-cultural map of Europe: family structures and the origins of differences between national political cultures in the European Union’, GeoJournal 47 (1999), 477–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 See Hajnal, ‘Two kinds’. P. Laslett was more critical of the existence of antithetical ‘Western’ and ‘Eastern’ family types than Hajnal later on. Instead, he spoke of a ‘continuum’ and a ‘gradation’ between different familial categories (Laslett, ‘Characteristics of the Western family’, 14–17), and even hypothesized the existence of a large ‘intermediary area’ which would have included Poland (ibid., 16). Nevertheless, both Hajnal's and Laslett's perceptions of family type in Eastern Europe seem to have been deeply influenced by P. Czap's findings for one Russian estate in Riazan province; see Laslett, ‘Characteristics of the Western family’, 12, 14, 22–3, 27, ‘The stem-family hypothesis’, 91, ‘Family and household as work group’, 517, 520–1, 549, and ‘Family, kinship and collectivity as systems of support in preindustrial Europe: a consideration of the “nuclear-hardship” hypothesis’, Continuity and Change 3 (1988), 156–9. Other examples of a similar approach include Alderson, A. S. and Sanderson, S. K., ‘Historic European household structures and the capitalist world-economy’, Journal of Family History 16 (1991), 419–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and A. Burguière and F. Lebrun, ‘Les Cent et une familles de l'Europe’, in A. Burguière et al. eds., Histoire de la Famille, 2 (1986), 38. Laslett's own assertions about Eastern Europe were based on unreliable and unrepresentative data. He made use of only one household listing from historical Poland (the Leśnica Opolska census), which did not provide information on the age of household members, had relationships to the heads of the households ill defined and poorly delineated residential groups; see Głowacki, H., ‘Spis parafian leśnickich z roku 1720’, Przeszłość Demograficzna Polski 1 (1967), 195–220.Google Scholar

5 The culturalist approach was best represented in the work of A. Macfarlane, The origins of English individualism: the family, property and social transition (Oxford, 1978), esp. pp. 18–30. Already in the 1920s and 1930s, German demographers maintained that there was a fundamental contrast between Germanic and Slavic populations and viewed joint family households (Grossfamilien) as the embodiment of the ‘Slavic soul’; see J. Ehmer, ‘Eine “deutsche” Bevölkerungsgeschichte? Gunther Ipsens historisch-soziologische Bevölkerungstheorie’, Demographische Informationen (1992/1993), 60–70. For the latter view, see Plakans, A., ‘Seigneurial authority and peasant family life: the Baltic area in the eighteenth century’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History 5 (1975), 629–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Alderson and Sanderson, ‘Historic European household structures’, 419–32.

6 M. Mitterauer, ‘Ostkolonisation und Familienverfassung: zur Diskussion um die Hajnal-Linie’, in V. Rajšp and E. Bruckmüller eds., Vilfanov zbornik. Pravo-zgodovina-narod: in memoriam Sergij Vilfan (Ljubljana, 1999), 203–21; K. Kaser, ‘Der Erbfall jenseits der “Hajnal-Mitterauer-Linie”: historische Haushalts-formierungsmuster im Südosten Europas’, in Institut für Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte ed., Wiener Wege der Sozialgeschichte: Themen, Perspektiven, Vermittlungen (Vienna, 1997), 163–81; Kaser, K., ‘Power and inheritance: male domination, property and family in Eastern Europe, 1500–1900’, History of the Family 7 (2002), 375–95CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

7 Macfarlane, The origins, 18–30; R. Schofield, ‘Family structure, demographic behaviour and economic growth’, in J. Walter and R. Schofield eds., Famine, disease and the social order in early modern society (Cambridge, 1989), 282–95; A. Melegh, ‘East/West exclusions and discourses on population in the 20th century’, Demographic Research Institute, Hungarian Central Statistical Office, Working Papers on Population, Family and Welfare, 3 (Budapest, 2002), 4–42.

8 D. van de Kaa, ‘The second demographic transition revisited: theories and expectations’, paper delivered at the Symposium on Population Change and European Society, Florence, 7–10 December 1988, 19; D. A. Coleman, ‘Converging and diverging patterns in Europe's populations’, paper presented at the European Population Conference, Plenary Session, Cracow, 10–13 June 1997, 27–8; M. Macura et al., ‘Eastern and western Europe's fertility and partnership patterns: selected developments from 1987 to 1999’, in E. Klijzing and M. Corijn eds., Dynamics of fertility and partnership in Europe: insights and lessons from comparative research, vol. I (New York and Geneva, 2002), 27–56.

9 The most important of these works include Borowski, S., ‘Próba odtworzenia struktur społecznych i procesów demograficznych na Warmii u schyłku XVIIw. na przykładzie Dobrego Miasta i okolicy’, Przeszłość Demograficzna Połski 8 (1975), 125–98Google Scholar; M. Górny, ‘Rodzina chłopska i jej gospodarstwo w Wielkopolsce w drugiej połowie XVIII wieku’, in M. Górny, Mieszkańcy parafii pępowskiej w 1777 roku: analiza księgi status animarum, Prace Historyczne IX (Wrocław, 1994), 111–19; Polaszewski, L., ‘Struktura społeczna ludności w parafii Szubin w 1766 roku’, Przeszłość Demograficzna Polski 10 (1978), 157–75Google Scholar; C. Kuklo, ‘Gospodarstwo domowe mieszczan-rolników kłobuckich w końcu XVIII wieku’, in P. Franaszek ed., Celem nauki jest człowiek … Studia z historii społecznej i gospodarczej ofiarowane Helenie Madurowicz-Urbańskiej (Cracow, 2000), 161–5; and Z. Kwaśny, ‘Rodzina chłopska w parafii Dobra w latach 1727–1758’, in H. Suchojad ed., Wesela, chrzciny i pogrzeby w XVI–XVIII wieku: kultura życia i śmierci (Warsaw, 2001), 23–31.

10 See for example Kwaśny, Z., ‘Struktura demograficzna ludności wiejskiej w kluczu Gryf w drugiej połowie XVIII wieku i na początku XIX wieku’, Śląski Kwartalnik Historyczny Sobótka 21 (1966), 103–23Google Scholar; Obraniak, W., ‘Oblicze demograficzne wsi wieluńskiej w epoce Sejmu Wielkiego’, Studia Demograficzne 16 (1968), 109–22Google Scholar; Wachowiak, B., ‘Rodzina chłopska na Pomorzu Zachodnim w połowie XVIII wieku’, Przeszłość Demograficzna Polski 18 (1990), 139–48Google Scholar; M. Kopczyński, Studia nad rodziną chłopską w Koronie w XVII–XVIII wieku (Warsaw, 1998); C. Kuklo, Kobieta samotna w społeczeństwie miejskim u schyłku Rzeczypospolitej szlacheckiej: studium demograficzno-społeczne (Białystok, 1998); and J. Janczak, ‘Dom, gospodarstwo i rodzina wiejska w Wieluńskiem u schyłku XVIII stulecia’, in P. Franaszek ed., Celem nauki jest człowiek … Studia z historii społecznej i gospodarczej ofiarowane Helenie Madurowicz-Urbańskiej (Cracow, 2000), 117–29. A recent interesting exception, A. Laszuk's Ludność województwa podlaskiego w drugiej połowie XVII wieku (Warsaw, 1999), suffers from some methodological inconsistencies with regards to household analysis.

11 J. Topolski, Położenie i walka klasowa chłopów w XVIII w. w dobrach arcybiskupa gnieźnieńskiego (Warsaw, 1956), 128; Wyczański, A. and Wyrobisz, A., ‘La famille et la vie économique’, Studia Historiae-oeconomicae 18 (1983), 46 ff.Google Scholar; M. Kopczyński, Studia nad rodziną chłopską, 31, 107, 170–1; Gieysztorowa, I., ‘Sprawozdanie z konferencji poświęconej zastosowaniu technik komputerowych w badaniach historyczno-demograficznych XVII i XVIII w.’, Przeszłość Demograficzna Polski 17 (1987), 265–75Google Scholar.

12 Szołtysek, M., ‘Central European household and family systems, and the “Hajnal-Mitterauer” line: the parish of Bujakow (18th–19th centuries)’, The History of the Family 1 (2007), 19–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Szołtysek, M. and Rzemieniecki, K., ‘Between “traditional” collectivity and “modern” individuality: an atomistic perspective on family and household astride the Hajnal line (Upper Silesia and Great Poland at the end of the eighteenth century)’, Historical Social Research 30 (2005), 130–70Google Scholar.

13 Apart from published editions of the archival materials, the remaining household lists can be found in the following archives or libraries: Central Archives of Historical Records in Warsaw (AGAD), the State Archive in Lublin (AP Lublin), The State Archive in Kraków (AP Kraków), the State Archive in Wrocław (AP Wrocław) and the Family History Library (Salt Lake City, Utah, USA).

14 The first comprehensive description of Libri Status Animarum and their Protestant versions was given in R. Mols, Introduction à la démographie historique des villes d'Europe du XIV au XVIII s., vol. III (Louvain 1954–1956), 25–37, 75–102.

15 B. Kumor, ‘Księgi “status animarum” w diecezjach polskich (do 1918 roku)’, Przeszłość Demograficzna Polski 1 (1967), 96–7.

16 Volumina Legum, IX (Cracow, 1889), 140. Believed to have covered the whole territory of the declining Polish state, only five large collections of data (besides some individual parishes) survived out of more than 70 commissions established throughout the Commonwealth in 1789–1790. Most of them have been used in this research. Some other remnants of the Commissions' censuses (for the Ukrainian part of the Commonwealth) are stored in the Central State Historical Archives of the Ukraine in Kiev, and will be consulted in the future.

17 Such defined ‘housefuls’ correspond clearly to the basic residential and taxable unit known in early modern Poland as dym (literally ‘smoke’) – a single house or hearth in a village; see I. Gieysztorowa, Wstęp do demografii staropolskiej (Warsaw, 1976), 185–91; R. A. French and R. E. F. Smith, ‘The terminology of settlements and their lands in late medieval Russia’, Centre for Russian and East European Studies, Discussion Papers, 7 (Series RC/D), August 1970, 22–3; and J. Morzy, Kryzys demograficzny na Litwie i Białorusi w II połowie XVII wieku (Poznań, 1965), 125, 296 (fn. 166).

18 Two examples of LSA used in this research appear to be particularly susceptible to these drawbacks as they included significant numbers of inter-faith marriages. Although spouses of heads (male or female) were not omitted from the list of household members if they were members of other religions, there is a suspicion that the clergy would be much less likely to do the same with children baptised in other confessions. Such listings, useful for some analyses of household organization, were omitted from others. On the other hand, even in some LSAs both Catholics and Protestants were included.

19 Other disadvantages include: the absence of information on social status of more than 50 per cent of all household heads; the omission of maiden names of the female population; numerous cases of a failure to distinguish between kinship through the male and female line. Where such deficiences were considered to have affected the analysis, the relevant parishes were excluded.

20 See T. Ładogórski, ‘Próba oceny rejestrów ludności okręgu siewiersko-pileckiego z lat 1787–1806’, Przeszłość Demograficzna Polski 1 (1967), 15, and I. Falniowska-Gradowska, ‘Szlachta województwa krakowskiego w świetle spisów parafialnych z lat 1790–1792’, in J. Chrobaczyński et al. eds., Ojczyzna bliższa i dalsza (Cracow, 1993), 500.

21 In the Protestant censuses the core families were registered first in enumerated blocks, which were followed by the lists of lodgers, retired heads and solitary persons, each of whom was designated with the number referring to the core household in which they actually lived.

22 See A. Plakans, ‘Seigneurial authority’; P. Czap, ‘“A large family: the peasant's greatest wealth”: serf households in Mishino, Russia, 1814–1858’, in R. Wall, J. Robin and P. Laslett eds., Family forms in historic Europe (Cambridge, 1983), 105–51; Palli, H., ‘Parish registers and revisions: research strategies in Estonian historical demography and agrarian history’, Social Science History 7 (1983), 289–310CrossRefGoogle Scholar; I. Troitskaya, ‘Revizii naseleniya Rossii kak istochnik demograficheskoi informatsii (metodologicheskie problemy)’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Faculty of Economics, Moscow State University, 1995); and T. Dennison, ‘Economy and society on a Russian serf estate: Voshchazhnikovo, 1816–58’ (unpublished University of Cambridge Ph.D. thesis, 2003).

23 On the Belarusian territories, the 1795–1796 revision was prepared both in Russian and Polish languages (Polish being presumably the language of the original lists), and covered in total 15 districts (uyezds) from Mińsk province, six from Grodno province, two from Mogilev province and one from Vitebsk. In the revisions, censuses of particular categories of the population were separately recorded (peasants; nobility; priests; demesne servants). In the present study only the category of peasants has been entered into the database.

24 For the instructions of how to carry out the revisions on the ex-Polish territories, see The complete code of laws of the Russian Empire (Piervoie polnoie sobranije zakonov Rossijskoj Imperii, 1649–1825), vol. 21, no. 15365, and vol. 23 no. 17327. However, it was the local authorities and officials of Polish origin who were responsible for their preparation and execution.

25 T. Dennison, Economy and society, 35–41; Blum and Troitskaya, ‘Mortality in Russia’, 124–9; A. Blum, I. Troitskaya and A. Avdeev, ‘Family, marriage and social control in Russia – three villages in the Moscow region’, in M. Neven and C. Capron, Family structures, demography and population: a comparison of societies in Asia and Europe (Liège, 2000), 90–1. See also Kabuzan, W. M., ‘Materialy revizii kak istochnik po istorii naseleniia Rossii XVIII–pervoi poloviny XIX v. 1718–1858 gg.’, Istoriia SSSR 5 (1959), 128–40Google Scholar.

26 All residential groups were classed by ‘houses’ or ‘huts’ (Polish dom; chałupa) in the Polish version of the revisions. In other Russian revision lists it was not unusual to have several kin-related ‘households’ in the Laslett sense assessed collectively; see T. Dennison, Economy and society, 38; Blum, Troitskaya and Avdeev, ‘Family, marriage and social control’, 91.

27 Surprisingly balanced sex ratios appear when the total population of all 36 parishes taken from the Mińsk soul revisions is considered (M/100 F=104). A more optimistic account of the quality of the fifth revision is also given in W. M. Kabuzan, Narodonaselenie Rossii XVIII–pervoi polovine XIX v. Moscow (Moscow, 1963), 171.

28 Here, as well as in other types of sources utilized in this research, ‘lodgers/inmates’ means serfs (unless referring to communities of freeholders), who usually had no access to landholding or to possessing their own house and who therefore rented parts of peasant premises (usually a room) from the landowner in exchange for a rent or some labour duties (see Ogilvie, S. and Cerman, M., ‘The Bohemian census of 1651 and the position of inmates’, Social History/Histoire Sociale 28 (1995), 333–46)Google Scholar.

29 Parishes from the region 6.4, and part of those belonging to regions 6.1 and 6.2 had already been annexed by Imperial Russia at the time of the census-taking and were included in the new administrative units.

30 Hundreds of ‘soul revisions’ are still kept in the historical archives of Mińsk and Grodno (Belarus), in Vilnius (Lithuania) and also in Moscow (Russia).

31 When applied to regional groupings of parishes with regard to variables measuring proportions of nuclear and complex households, households with living-in servants and inmates, it was established that there was significant uniformity of regions 1–5, 7 and 8 in most aspects (to be called ‘west’). Regions 6.1 and 6.4 are identified as departing significantly the rest of the sample. Significant differences were also proven to exist between regions 6.2/6.3 on the one hand (‘middle east’), and 6.1/6.4 on the other (the ‘east’). More details are given in M. Szołtysek and D. Biskup, ‘Diversity, variation and the time–space conundrum: family forms in Eastern Europe further explored’, paper presented at Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure, February 2008 (available in the Cambridge Group library).

32 W. W. Hagen, ‘Village life in East-Elbian Germany and Poland, 1400–1800’, in T. Scott ed., The peasantries of Europe: from the fourteenth to the eighteenth centuries (London, 1998), 154. The extensive Polish literature on the theme includes J. Rutkowski, ‘Geneza ustroju folwarczno-pańszczyźnianego w Europie Środkowej od końca średniowiecza’, in J. Rutkowski, Wieś europejska późnego feudalizmu (XVI–XVIIIw.), selected and edited by J. Topolski (Warsaw, 1986 [first publ. 1928]), 216–24; W. Kula, An economic theory of the feudal system: towards a model of the Polish economy, 1500–1800 (London, 1986); and Topolski, J., ‘The manorial-serf economy in Central and Eastern Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries’, Agricultural History 48 (1974), 341–52Google Scholar.

33 Hagen, ‘Village life’, 154–6. The system implied the organization of the arable into a three-field system, introduced seigneurial lordship and also established village communes governed by a mayor. See also Arłamowski, K., ‘Chłopi w królewszczyznach ziemi chełmskiej w świetle lustracji 1564/65 i 1661/65’, Rocznik Historyczno-Archiwalny 9 (1995), 3–17Google Scholar; S. Sochaniewicz, Wójtostwa i sołtystwa pod względem prawnym i ekonomicznym w ziemi lwowskiej (Lvov, 1921).

34 F. Persowski, Osady na prawie ruskiem, polskiem, niemieckiem i wołoskiem w ziemi lwowskiej. Studjum z dziejów osadnictwa (Lvov, 1926); W. Hejnosz, Fragmenty ‘Iuris Ruthenici’ na Rusi Czerwonej pod koniec średniowiecza (Lvov, 1930), 1–5. Janeczek has suggested (Osadnictwo pogranicza polsko-ruskiego, 192) that many of these particularities were effectively transformed into a more homogeneous pattern by larger economic forces of the seventeenth century. A good introduction to the region's history and ethno-cultural composition is given in Hann, C., ‘Postsocialist nationalism: rediscovering the past in southeast Poland’, Slavic Review 57 (1998), 842–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35 V. I. Picheta, Agrarnaya reforma Sigizmunda Avgusta v Litovsko-Russkom gosudarstve (Moscow, 1958), 228–42); see also French, R. A., ‘Field patterns and the three-field system: the case of sixteenth-century Lithuania’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 48 (1969), 121–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and ‘The three-field system of sixteenth-century Lithuania’, Agricultural History Review 18 (1970), 106–25; J. Ochmański, Dawna Litwa: studia historyczne (Olsztyn, 1986), 163–5, 175–83, 187–95; P. G. Kozlovskij, ‘Polozhenije krestjan v magnatskich votchinach Belorussii vo vtoroj polovine XVIII v.’, Ezhegodnik po Agrarnoj Istorii Vostochnoj Evropy (1970), 209; P. G. Kozlovskii, Krest'iane Belorussii vo vtoroi polovine XVII—XVIII v. (po materialam magnatskikh votchin) (Mińsk, 1969), 43.

36 W. Bérélowitch and I. Gieysztor, ‘Russie, Pologne, pays Baltes’, in J.-P. Bardet and J. Dupâquier, Histoire des populations de l'Europe, vol. I: Des origines aux prémices de la révolution démographique (Paris, 1997), 569–70; Laszuk, Ludność wojewówdztwa podlaskiego, 31; A. Janeczek, Osadnictwo pogranicza polsko-ruskiego: województwo Bełskie od schyłku XIV do początku XVII wieku (Warsaw, 1992), 11; A. M. Karpachev and P. G. Kozlovskij, ‘Dinamika chislennosti naselenia Belorussii vo vtoroi polovine XVII–XVIII vv.’, Ezhegodnik po Agrarnoj Istorii Vostochnoj Evropy (1972), 87; Morzy, Kryzys demograficzny, 148 (Table 21).

37 Baranowski, I. T., ‘Wsie holenderskie na ziemiach polskich’, Przegląd Historyczny 19 (1915), 64–82Google Scholar. Region 5, as well as the western part of region 8, retained their mostly non-Polish and predominantly Protestant character from the sixteenth century.

38 H. M. Łaszkiewicz, Dziedzictwo czy towar? Szlachecki handel ziemią w powiecie chełmskim w II połowie XVII wieku (Lublin, 1998), 45–6; A. Gil, Chełmska diecezja unicka 1596–1810: dzieje i organizacja (Lublin, 2005), 158–60; Janeczek, Osadnictwo pogranicza, 197–203.

39 A. Żabko-Potopowicz, Praca najemna i najemnik w rolnictwie w Wielkim Księstwie Litewskim w wieku osiemnastym na tle ewolucji stosunków w rolnictwie (Warsaw, 1929), 61–2; J. Jurkiewicz, ‘Czynsz i pańszczyzna w ekonomiach królewskich w Wielkim Księstwie Litewskim w XVII– i w pierwszej połowie XVIII wieku’, in J. Bardach and J. Ślusarczyk eds., Przemiany w Polsce, Rosji, na Ukrainie, Białorusi i Litwie: druga połowa XVII– pierwsza XVIII w. (Wrocław, 1991), 49.

40 Kozlovskij, ‘Polozhenije krestjan’, 210–11; P. G. Kozlovskij, Magnatskoe choziaystvo Belorussii vo vtoroy polovine XVIII v. (centralnaia i zapadnaia zony) (Mińsk, 1974), 109, 174 (Table 12); Żabko-Potopowicz, Praca najemna i najemnik, 49–54, 81–2, 123.

41 J. R. Szaflik, Wieś lubelska w połowie XVII wieku: problem zniszczeń wojennych i odbudowy (Lublin, 1963), 159; Arłamowski, ‘Chłopi w królewszczyznach ziemi chełmskiej’, 12–13; Morzy, Kryzys demograficzny, 152–4 (Tables 22 and 23); D. L. Pochilewicz, ‘W sprawie kryzysu i upadku gospodarki obszarniczej Rzeczypospolitej w drugiej połowie XVII i pierwszej połowie XVIII wieku’, Kwartalnik Historyczny 65 (1958), 742–63.

42 J. Rutkowski, ‘Przebudowa wsi w Polsce po wojnach z połowy XVII wieku’, in J. Rutkowski, Studia z dziejów wsi polskiej XVI–XVIII w. (Warsaw, 1956 [first publ. 1916]), 102–7; Żabko-Potopowicz, Praca najemna i najemnik, 109–112; B. Baranowski, Gospodarstwo chłopskie i folwarczne we Wschodniej Wielkopolsce w XVIII wieku (Warsaw, 1958), 41–52; J. Topolski, Gospodarstwo wiejskie w dobrach arcybiskupstwa gnieźnieńskiego od XVI do XVIII wieku (Poznań, 1958), 92–4.

43 Kozlovskij, Magnatskoe choziaystvo, 108–19, and ‘Polozhenije krestjan’, 206–15; P. G. Kozlovskij, ‘Zemelnyj nadel i povinnosti krestyan v magnatskich vladenyach Belorussii vo vtoroj polovine XVIII v.’, Ezhegodnik po Agrarnoj Istorii Vostochnoj Evropy (1961), 220–3; D. L. Pochilewicz, ‘Korolevskye ekonomii Litvy i Belorussii v 70–80 godach XVIII v. (proizvodstvo, naselenye)’, Ezhegodnik po Agrarnoj Istorii Vostochnoj Evropy (1963), 347–61.

44 J. Rutkowski, ‘Studia nad położeniem włościan w Polsce w XVIII wieku’, in Rutkowski, Studia z dziejów wsi polskiej XVI–XVIII w., ed. W. Kula (Warsaw, 1956 [first publ. 1914]), 182–4.

45 Emphyteusis can be defined as the hereditable and transferable right of the emphyteut to the usufruct and exploitation of a landowner's land, in return for a compulsory annual rent. The legal situation of the emphyteut as a hereditary tenant resembled in several instances that of an owner. See J. Rutkowski, ‘Poddaństwo włościan w XVIII wieku w Polsce i niektórych innych krajach Europy’, in J. Rutkowski, Wieś europejska późnego feudalizmu, ed. J. Topolski (Warsaw, 1986), 142–3; J. Topolski, ‘Polish economy in the eighteenth century’, in E. Cieślak and H. Olszewski, Changes in two Baltic countries: Poland and Sweden in the XVIIIth century (Poznań, 1990), 8–10; J. Goldberg, ‘Osadnictwo olęderskie w dawnym województwie łęczyckim i sieradzkim’, Zeszyty Naukowe Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego 5 (1957), seria 1, 67–110. See also K. Orzechowski, Chłopskie posiadanie na Górnym Śląsku u schyłku epoki feudalnej (Opole, 1959).

46 A. Falniowska-Gradowska, Świadczenia poddanych na rzecz dworu w królewszczyznach województwa krakowskiego w drugiej połowie XVIII wieku (Wrocław, 1964), 167–93.

47 Rutkowski, ‘Studia nad położeniem włościan’, 205; J. Rutkowski, ‘Poddaństwo włościan w XVIII wieku’, 84–85; K. Arłamowski, ‘Chłopi w królewszczyznach ziemi chełmskiej’.

48 J. Rutkowski, ‘Poddaństwo włościan w XVIII wieku’, 84; Szołtysek, ‘Central European household and family systems’, 21.

49 Kozlovskij, Magnatskoe choziaystvo Belorussii, 109, 174 (Tables 12 and 13); Kozlovskij, ‘Polozhenije krestjan’, 207–8, 211; Kozlovskij, ‘Zemelnyj nadel’, 227.

50 Kozlovskij, Krest'iane Belorussii, 185 (Table 5); Kozlovskij, ‘Zemelnyj nadel’, 221–4. Individual land allotments could be larger in eastern Belorusia (0.5–2.0 włóki); see M. B. Topolska, Dobra szkłowskie na Białorusi Wschodniej w XVII i XVIII wieku (Warsaw, 1969), 36–7, 89–92. On the landlords' preferences, see S. Pawlik, Polskie instruktarze ekonomiczne z końca XVII i z XVIII wieku, vol. 1 (Kraków, 1915), 46–7 (Wielaszkowic estate, 1769) and 135 (Grodzieńska Crown manor, before 1777).

51 M. Szołtysek and K. Rzemieniecki, ‘Between “traditional” collectivity and “modern” individuality’, 135–6. See also Rutkowski, ‘Studia nad położeniem włościan’, 171.

52 See Pawlik, Polskie instruktarze ekonomiczne, 90 (Wielaszkowice estate, 1769), 257, 277 (central Lithuania, late eighteenth century).

53 Morzy, Kryzys demograficzny, 151.

54 The conflicts arising from the coresidence of kin-related family units are revealed in the village court rolls; see A. Vetulani, Księgi sądowe wiejskie klucza łąckiego, vol. 1 (Wrocław, 1962–1963), entry 571; S. Płaza, Księga sądowa wsi Iwkowej, 1581–1809 (Wrocław, 1969), 79 (entry 113). The reasons for opting for co-residence are discussed in Szołtysek and Rzemieniecki, ‘Between “traditional” collectivity and “modern” individuality’, 136.

55 Rutkowski, ‘Poddaństwo włościan w XVIII wieku’, 133–4, 141–3, and ‘Studia nad położeniem włościan’, 171–3, 175–6; Szołtysek, ‘Central European household and family systems’, 29–34; K. Kowalski, ‘Prawne zwyczaje w zakresie wyposażenia dzieci i dziedziczenia oraz sprawa niepodzielności małych gospodarstw wiejskich w województwie lubelskim’, in J. Górski et al. eds., Zwyczaje spadkowe włościan w Polsce, Part 3: Zwyczaje spadkowe włościan w województwach centralnych (b. Królestwo Kongresowe) (Warsaw, 1929), 197–8. Also, retirement contracts appeared in large numbers in the village court rolls throughout western and southern Poland; see Płaza, Księga sądowa wsi Iwkowej, 98 (entry 167), and A. Vetulani, Księgą sądowa Uszwi dla wsi Zawady 1619–1788 (Wrocław, 1957), 83 (46), 100–1 (85), 117–18 (123).

56 On the latter, see R. D. Bohac, ‘Peasant inheritance strategies in Russia’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History 16 (1985), 23–42, and D. Moon, The Russian peasantry, 1600–1930: the world the peasants made (New York, 1999), 180–3.

57 The open-field agriculture prevailing in Russia implied the collective management of the arable lands. The peasant communes repartitioned the village lands periodically, with the aim of matching the land resources to the households' working capacity; see S. F. Williams, Liberal reform in an illiberal regime: the creation of private property in Russia, 1906–1915 (Stanford, 2006), 39–45; Moon, The Russian peasantry, 215–16.

58 W. Conze, Agrarverfassung und Bevölkerung in Litauen und Weißrußland, Volume 1 (Leipzig, 1940), 36 ff.; Mitterauer, ‘Ostkolonisation und Familienverfassung’, 216–18. Compare A. I. Višniauskaitė, ‘Razvitie litovskoj krest'ianskoj sem'i’, in Proceedings of the VII International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (Moscow, 1964), 1–12 (esp. pp. 3–4); French and Smith, ‘The terminology of settlements’, 21.

59 Kozlovskij, ‘Zemelnyj nadel’, 220, Krest'iane Belorussii, 50–3, and ‘Polozhenije krestjan’, 209.

60 P. Czap, ‘The perennial multiple family household, Mishino, Russia 1782–1858’, Journal of Family History 7 (1982), 6 ff.; A. Plakans, ‘Peasant farmsteads and households in the Baltic littoral, 1797’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 17 (1975), 18–19.

61 P. Laslett, ‘The stem-family hypothesis’, 70–3. The distribution of nuclear households in the Polish western areas revealed higher mean, median and minimum and maximum values than in the English dataset. Also, the Polish data exhibit less variation than the English ones. See M. Szołtysek, ‘The missing link: Central European family pattern and the reconsideration of P. Laslett's hypotheses’, paper presented at the Economic History Society conference, the Peter Chalk Centre, University of Exeter, UK, 1 April 2007.

62 J. Lee and J. Gjerde, ‘Comparative morphology of stem, joint, and nuclear household systems: Norway, China and the United States’, Continuity and Change 1 (1986), 90 ff.; O. Saito, ‘Marriage, family labour and the stem family household: traditional Japan in a comparative perspective’, Continuity and Change 15 (2000), 26–7.

63 The relevant methodology is explained in Lee and Gjerde, ‘Comparative morphology’, 94–5. Laslett (‘Introduction’, 68) considered such an approach as particularly suitable for investigating the household as an institution for socializing children.

64 Estimates based on data for 94,743 individuals (57,288 in the ‘western’ cluster; 29,847 in the ‘middle eastern’; 7,608 in the ‘eastern’), eight parishes were excluded. On the Baltic estate of Daudzewas coresiding kin who were not members of the core families made up 22.3 per cent of the total farmstead population; see Plakans, ‘Peasant farmsteads and households’, 26.

65 The estimates in this paragraph are based on the data for 151 parishes (8 excluded).

66 Relationships, as elsewhere in this article, are measured in terms of kin relationship to the household head. The significance of this is that if headship has passed from a parent to a married child, the offspring of this child will not be counted as grandchildren even if the grandparent is present in the household. The frequency of such grandchildren was also reduced by the successor child being not the eldest; see E. A. Hammel, K. W. Wachter and P. Laslett, ‘Household hypotheses’, in Wachter, Hammel and Laslett, Statistical studies, 29–42.

67 See Mitterauer, ‘Peasant and non-peasant family forms’, 149.

68 Based on data for 136 parishes and 14,401 households (23 parishes excluded).

69 M. Szołtysek, ‘Female headship, household position, and gendered well-being in peasant societies: evidence from the territories of the historical Kingdom of Poland (eighteenth century)’, in L. Ferrer, A. Fauve-Chamoux, J. Kok and M. Durais eds., The transmission of well-being: marriage strategies and inheritance systems in Europe, 17th–20 th centuries (Bern, 2009, forthcoming).

70 Czap, ‘The perennial multiple family’, 18, and ‘“A large family: the peasant's greatest wealth”’, 143–4.

71 See Berkner, ‘The stem family’, and P. Laslett, ‘Mean household size in England since the sixteenth century’, in Laslett and Wall eds., Household and family, 150–1.

72 On the importance of patterns of leaving home in the context of the transition to adulthood in historical populations, see F. van Poppel and M. Oris, ‘Introduction’, in F. van Poppel, M. Oris and J. Lee eds., The road to independence: leaving home in Western and Eastern societies, 16th–20th centuries (Bern, 2004), 1–29.

73 See also Szołtysek, ‘Female headship, household position, and gendered well-being’.

74 In the eastern territories of Poland, the early and universal marriage of serfs was considered to be the landowners' greatest wealth, and demesne officials were constantly reminded to encourage frequent weddings through either small money rewards or a free provision of alcohol for those organizing them. Servants, in particular, should be encouraged to marry after a certain age; see Pawlik, Polskie instruktarze ekonomiczne, 90, 257, 277. For even more explicit attempts of the Russian landowners, see J. Bushnell, ‘Did serf owners control serf marriages? Orlov serfs and their neighbours, 1773–1861’, Slavic Review 52 (1993), 419–45. For the method of analysis used here, see J. Hajnal, ‘Analysis of changes in the marriage pattern by economic groups’, American Sociological Review 9, 1954, 295–302. Regrettably, as information on the marital status of older persons was often not recorded in our data, it was impossible to meet the requirements neccassary to estimate either the SMAM (singulate mean age at marriage) or the proportions of persons in permanent celibacy.

75 Constraints on female early marriage in the Belarusian parishes may explain this puzzle. They resulted from the narrowing of the pool of prospective spouses for females (the unbalanced sex ratio appears in all three age groups in the Belarusian cluster (65 men for 100 females in the age group 25–29).

76 R. M. Smith, ‘Fertility, economy, and household formation in England over three centuries’, Population and Development Review 7 (1981), 600; Hajnal, ‘Two kinds of preindustrial household’, 84–5.

77 For the description of the institution of inmates in Central European setting, and the modes of family economy related to them, see Szołtysek, ‘Central European household and family systems’, 29, 32, 34.

78 Between the mid-20s and the late 40s, the proportion of married males holding headship increased over 3.5 times in the ‘middle east’ (from 25.2% to 92.2%), comparing to only just under 1.6 times in the ‘west’ (from 56.7% to 89.4%).

79 See also the village court rolls of Ruthenian communities from south-eastern Lesser Poland: L. Łysiak, Księga sądowa kresu klimkowskiego, 1600–1762 (Wrocław, 1965),118 (entry 355).

80 Pawlik, Polskie instruktarze ekonomiczne, 167; see also 24, 46–7, 135.

81 G. Ipsen, ‘Agrarverfassung: III. Landvolk. Soziale Struktur’, in Handwörterbuch des Grenz-und Auslanddeutschtums, Volume 1 (Breslau, 1933), 37–52; J. Knodel, The decline of fertility in Germany, 1871–1939 (Princeton, 1974), 142–4; Macfarlane, ‘Demographic structures’; Laslett, ‘Family and household as work group’, 559.

82 A. Plakans and C. Wetherell, ‘The Hajnal line and Eastern Europe’, in T. Engelen and A. P.Wolf eds., Marriage and the family in Eurasia: perspectives on the Hajnal hypothesis (Amsterdam, 2005), 119; A. Plakans and C. Wetherell, ‘The search for place: East European family history, 1800–2000’, in R. Wall et al. eds., Family history revisited: comparative perspectives (Newark, 2001), 260.

83 D. I. Kertzer, ‘Household history’.

84 J. Hajnal, ‘European marriage patterns in perspective’, in D. V. Glass and D. E. C. Eversley eds., Population in history: essays in historical demography (London, 1965), 133; W. Kula, ‘The seigneur and the peasant family in eighteenth-century Poland’, in R. Foster and O. Ranum eds., Family and society: selection from the ‘Annales, Economies, Sociétés, Civilisations’ (Baltimore, 1976), 192–203; Alderson and Sanderson, ‘Historic European household’, 426; R. L. Rudolph, ‘The European family and economy: central themes and issues’, Journal of Family History 17 (1992), 122–4.

85 The mechanisms accounting for such patterns are explained in Rutkowski, ‘Studia nad położeniem włościan’, 195–8; Żabko-Potopowicz, Praca najemna i najemnik, 111–12. See also E. Melton, ‘Household economies and communal conflicts on a Russian serf estate’, Journal of Social History 26 (1993), 564, and ‘Enlightened seignioralism and its dilemmas in serf Russia, 1750–1830’, Journal of Modern History 62 (1990), 677–78, 685–7. The role of serfdom in relation to patterns of the family is also discussed in J. Kahk and H. Uibu, ‘Familiengeschichtliche Aspekte der Entwicklung des Bauernhofes und der Dorfgemeinde in Estland in der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts’, in J. Ehmer and M. Mitterauer eds., Familienstruktur und Arbeitsorganisation in ländlichen Gesellschaften (Vienna, 1986), 37–9, 61–4, 71–3; and J. Capo Zmegac, ‘New evidence and old theories: multiple family households in northern Croatia’, Continuity and Change 11 (1996), 386–92.

86 M. Szołtysek, ‘East European family patterns and the transition cultural zone (16th–18th centuries): testing the model’, paper presented at the Institut für Geschichte, Karl-Franzens-Universität, Abteilung für Südosteuropäische Geschichte, Graz, Austria, 27 September 2007.

87 V. Nasevich, ‘The multiple-family household: relic of a patriarchal past or more recent phenomenon?’, paper presented at Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure, August 2007 (available in the Cambridge Group library); Višniauskaitë, ‘Razvitie litovskoj krest'ianskoj sem'i’; V. A. Aleksandrov, ‘Typology of the Russian peasant family in the feudal period’, Soviet Studies in History (Fall 1982), 26–62.

88 M. Polla, ‘Characteristics of the family system in a nineteenth-century Russian community’, Continuity and Change 19 (2004), 215–39; M. Polla, ‘Family systems in central Russia in the 1830s and 1890s’, History of the Family 11 (2006), 27–44.