Nuptiality and family reproduction in male-inheritance systems: Reflections on the example of the Franche-Comté (seventeenth-eighteenth centuries)

Abstract

The family system practiced in the rural Franche-Comté until the nineteenth century was based on egalitarian inheritance among sons and on the exclusion of daughters; as such, it was associated with distinct Malthusian nuptiality. This system cannot be understood without an examination of the formation and dynamics of a type of family that included frequent stages of undivided patrimony and coresidence in a context giving little encouragement to neolocal marriage and to the independence of sons. A comparative perspective suggests certain similarities with the stem family system, despite differences in inheritance norms. Prime importance must be given to the notion of self-regulation by the family unit itself, by contrast with other societies where regulation took place through the mediation of “market” phenomena. Acceptance of the common idea of a contrast between impartible and partible inheritance should be highly qualified, insofar as partibility can hide various patterns of social reproduction. Different kinds of joint family household systems must be distinguished carefully, for they have neither the same significance nor imply the sane demographic patterns.