Spatial construction of European family and household systems: a promising path or a blind alley? An Eastern European perspective

Abstract

This essay represents an attempt at a re-examination of the Western scientific evidence for the existence of the divergent "Eastern European family pattern." This evidence is challenged by almost entirely unknown contributions of Eastern European scholars, revealing the stark incompatibility of the two discourses. This paper is informed to a large extent by R. Wall's voluminous research on European household and family systems. Wall's original observation of non-negligible spatial variation within the supposedly homogenous North-Western European marriage and family pattern is used here as a starting point to show the true diversity of familial organization in Eastern Europe, which had been placed at the other end of the spectrum of what was long believed to be a dichotomous division in European family systems. The diversity of family forms and the rhythms of their development in historical Eastern Europe presented in this literature should finally free us from a simplistic view of the continent's familial history, and especially from the perspective implied by the notion of a "dividing line."

Testing Todd and Matching Murdock: Global Data on Historical Family Characteristics

“…On the other hand, many of the reviewers also suggest that his ideas deserve to be further tested (Kiernan 1990;Kertzer 1988;Greenhalgh 1987;Roseberry 1990). Todd's use of strict categories, classification of macro-regions, and claims of deep historical roots is also in disagreement with some of the findings in historical demography (see Szołtysek 2012 for an overview). Overall, Todd's work is attractive for its global scope, and his marriage of historical sources with categories that translate easily to cross-national variables.…”

Long-term demographic change and local socio-cultural patterns: marriages and household structure in 18–20th century Hungary

“…Also see: Oris-Ochiai (2002). For newer summaries see: Gruber-Szołtysek (2012) and Szołtysek (2012). A newer attempt to survey the research field is Őri-Pakot (2014).…”

“…2 For the criticism, see for example: Berkner (1972), Burguière-Lebrun (1986), Goody (1996), Schlumbohm (2000), Melegh (2002), Szołtysek (2008), Szołtysek-Zuber-Goldstein (2009), Gruber-Szołtysek (2012, Szołtysek (2012), Őri-Pakot (2014).…”

Family systems and fertility : fertility behaviour in Europe from a network perspective

“…Family obligations were measured, for example, by the existence of national laws and institutions pertaining to disadvantaged people, the share of elderly people co-residing with their offspring, and the number of publicly or privately funded nursing homes in different European countries and the US (Reher 1998: 209/210). Different researchers, on the other hand, have already discovered important regional deviations from the described general pattern of weak and strong family regions (Hank 2007;Jappens and Van Bavel 2012: 94, 108, 112;Micheli 2012;Szołtysek 2012). The need to more thoroughly examine family structures on a regional level was already stressed by Reher (1998) as a future field of research 35 as he could not address it on the basis of his source material, and it was also not relevant to the intention of his paper (Micheli 2012: 29;Reher 1998: 203/204;Viazzo 2010a: 283).…”

“…Secondly, there is a lack of studies which included social relationships beyond the household. Instead, researchers who further specified and/or mainly to the study of households (Szołtysek 2012). However, it has been acknowledged that, in many cases, important economic and social interdependencies exist among family and kin residing outside the household (Georgas et al 2001: 299;Jappens and Van Bavel 2012: 103-104;Lee 1985;Yorburg 1975).…”