From Complex to Simple Family Households: Peasant Households in Northern Coastal Sweden 1700-1900

Abstract

The long-term development of the households of landed peasants was investigated longitudinally in one village, and cross-sectionally in several parishes in northern coastal Sweden. The results showed a dominance of complex family households in a stem family system during the 1700s and development toward simpler family households in the 1800s. Demographic, economic, ecological, geographic, and, to some degree, cultural factors and their changes over time were taken into consideration in an explanation of this transition.

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