The Northeastern Algarve and the Southern Iberia Family Pattern

Abstract

In the northeastern Algarve, Portugal, semi-dispersed settlements and property fragmentation evidently had coexisted with a predominantly nuclear family household pattern since the midnineteenth century, suggesting that a small holding pattern of land tenure need not always lead to a stem-family household as is so often true in other areas of Iberia. Other comparisons, drawn between the Algarve and the adjacent region of Alentejo, suggest that regional variation is strong on all measures and poses an interesting challenge to social scientific explanation.