The pro to‐industrial family economy: The structural function of household and family during the transition from peasant society to industrial capitalism¹

Abstract

See, especially, The World We Have Lost (2nd ed. 1971). See, also, his contributions to the volume Household and Family in Past Time (Cambridge, 1972) which he co-edited with Richard Wall : ' Introduction : the history of the family ', 1-73, and ' Mean household size in England since the sixteenth century', 125-58, On this subject Laslett has also co-authored an essay with E. A. Hammel, 'Comparing household structure over time and between cultures', Comparative Studies in Society and History, xvi (1974), 73-109. 5 Household and Family in Past Time has attracted a great deal of critical attention. Among the most far-reaching reviews the following stand out: E. P. Thompson (anon.), 'Under the rooftree', The Times Literary Supplement, no. 3713 (4 May 1973), 485-7; L. K. Berkner, 'The use and misuse of census data for the historical analysis of family structure ',

The Vanishing Female: The Decline of Women in the Criminal Process, 1687-1912

“…At the same time, some argue that men were more occupied in domestic activities (Clark 1919;Medick 1976). All this changed with industrial capitalism, "which broke away from the family system, and dealt directly with individuals, the first fruit of individualism being shown by the exclusion of women from the journeyman's associations" (Clark 1919:301).…”

“…However, the fact that women had greater participation in the household economy and control over certain aspects of production indicates that social controls in the family and economy may have been less than they were in the nineteenth century. One historian even argues that not only did men and women share productive work during this period, but that there was almost "sexrole reversal" in the sharing of household tasks (Medick 1976). Control theorists posit that controls over female labor and the restriction of women to domestic work leads to lesser female deviance; the greater participation of women in economic production in the eighteenth century may mean that they were less controlled, more able to engage in criminal activity, and more subject of formal legal controls.…”

Rural industry and uneven development: The significance of gender in the Irish Linen industry

“…Medick [1976] and Levine [1977] both argued that it was the labour of women and children which made possible the "super-exploitation" of proto-industrial households -that is, the purchase of commodities produced in such households at less than the cost of household reproduction. Women and children provided the crucial marginal work effort which enabled the household to survive, but this work remained underpaid and often did not involve any direct money transfer to those who performed it.…”

Feeding Dar es Salaam: a symbiotic food system perspective

“…There is a well-developed literature on the notion of selfexploitation that spans many decades and continues today (Harris-White, 2012;Chayanov, 1986;Medick, 1976;Millar, 1970) and there is a gender analysis of how women's labour has been exploited in agricultural production, including in Tanzania (Mbilinyi, 1994). There is even the discovery and examination of self-exploitation within "community supported agriculture" (Galt, 2013), despite that being built around the notion of buyers acting in support and solidarity with farmers.…”

“…There is even the discovery and examination of self-exploitation within "community supported agriculture" (Galt, 2013), despite that being built around the notion of buyers acting in support and solidarity with farmers. This is a debate that I cannot do justice to here, but I would urge readers and possible future researchers in this field to consider that notions and measures of exploitation need to better take into account: 1) The situation where a person may work long hours, but they work at their own pace and include many social and recreational activities within their working time and place, such as the shopkeeper whose work day includes watching football and chatting with friends, even sleeping when business is slow; 2) That many actors who may be seen as low paid workers are not stuck in that situation for their entire working lives, but rather are at a particular stage of a clear path to becoming owners of their own businesses in the future; and 3) How the common and linked assumptions that this exploitation of self and family labour is created by and subsidizing capitalism (Harris-White, 2012;Medick, 1976) may not be correct, or at least not the whole picture, when the exploitation is done within a symbiotic food system that is providing low cost food and services to a range of actors and productive entities that do not conform to typical notions of capitalist enterprises.…”