From ecotypes to sociotypes

Abstract

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.

Notes

1 This article is based on a larger study: Mathieu (1998), in particular, chapters 6–8. It was made possible by a grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation.

2 I have abbreviated the description of the ideal types; Albera (1995) also includes elements of habitat, household delimitation, social difference, etc.

3 Explanation of map symbols (after Martonne 1926, pp. 154–166). 1: Cattle raising, meadows, supplemented by cereals and potatoes. 2: Specializing in cattle raising, meadows. 3: Large forests figuring prominently in the rural economy. 4: Mixed economy with important chestnut culture; wine, maize; higher population density. 5 and 8: Sheep predominance south of line (8), especially marked in the cereal-growing region (5). 6 and 7: Marked agricultural variety with maize and other cultures in low-lying river valleys; high population density; significant viticulture in regions (6), receding or nonexistent in regions (7).

4 In the Grisons, kinship relations did play an important role, possibly even increasing in the long term, but they followed an open, bilateral conception.

5 Regarding the categories in Table 2 see Meyer (1993)(pp. 157–177) for SV and IM; Held (1982)(pp. 227–254) for RA; Mitterauer (1986)(pp. 242–244) for SW; Unterschichtenindex (index of lower classes) with same definition as in Table 2 but with diverging values, partly because his numbers in several parishes refer to partial populations only.

6 Partible inheritance is also explained in ecological terms by some authors because it led to a physical scattering of fields and thus contributed to risk reduction—to what extent this aspect actually determined peasant decision-making processes remains unclear; see, for instance, Netting (1981)(p. 17), a study on an Swiss mountain village that contains several “ecosystematic fallacies” (as the author later called it) but has been useful in promoting discussion (Albera 1995; Viazzo 1989).

7 Standard works for the three regions are Devos and Grosperrin (1985); Handbuch der Bündner Geschichte (2000); Fräss-Ehrfeld (1994); for a survey with additional literature see Mathieu (1998)(ch. 7).

8 As mentioned earlier, Albera (1995) couples the “agnatic” ideal type with an open and migration-oriented economy; between Savoy and the Grisons, however, there existed no basic differences in this respect; the estimated rates of migration were on the same order.

9 See population census of 1869: Bevölkerung und Viehstand der im Reichsrathe vertretenen Königreiche und Länder, dann der Militärgränze. Nach der Zählung vom 31. December 1869, hg. von der k.k. Statistischen Central-Commission (6 Hefte), Vienna 1871–1872.

10 According to investigations dating from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the areas marked by a predominance of impartible inheritance roughly coincide with what were then regions dominated by larger-scale farms (Fig. 2); both extended north toward the Bavarian and Upper-Austrian area of the Danube.

11 Some authors emphasize that impartible inheritance was enforced by strong landlords. It seems to me that functional assumptions about the connections between specific power structures and specific family structures are less convincing than the assumption of chronological links: to a considerable extent, development depended on what configurations were actually dominant on the lower and higher levels of society in the process of state-building.