In Sweden, as in other parts of north Western Europe, the servant system was well integrated with the marriage pattern and household formation system. While waiting to get married, young people for a period of their Iives worked as unmarried servants living in a master's household. Thus, Laslett's term "life cycle servants" is well suited to Swedish conditions. However, during the nineteenth century the importance of the servant system began to decrease, as a consequence of commercialisation of agriculture, industrialisation and urbanisation. On large farms and manors unmarried servants were replaced by married contract-workers, who lived with their families in dwellings owned by the employer. To young people the appearance of this new occupation meant a chance of forming a family without having access to a farm or crof1. In the twentieth century, the mechanisation of the agricultural production and migration from rural to urban and industrial areas further reduced the importance of the servant system in the countryside. The servant occupation became more or less a female occupation of domestic service in urban areas
