This article addresses the debate over the peasant household by using
the example of a French wine commune to challenge the notion of the universal
nuclear family. Household organization and family demographic patterns varied
distinctively among laborers, farmers, and landowners in this commune in the
nineteenth century. The influence of inheritance, marriage patterns, fertility, and
work patterns on household organization is explained. A second finding is that
extended households increased in number between 1836 and 1866. Far from dis
appearing with "modernization, " extended households enabled some families to
adapt to market forces by mobilizing household resources and labor in new ways.
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