Arrizabalaga, Marie-Pierre

English

Histoire sociale / Social History (E-Journal, York University)

examples of “small” victories by labour and explaining how they counted at thetime and how they should be counted now makes up for dozens of minorerrors. This is a good and useful book and it deserves a wide readership.David M. EmmonsUniversity of MontanaFAUVE-CHAMOUX, Antoinette, and Ochiai, EMIKO (eds.) — The Stem Family inEurasian Perspective. Revisiting House Societies, 17th–20th centuries. Bern,Peter Lang, 2009. Pp. 558.Antoinette Fauve-Chamoux and Emiko Ochiai offer a comprehensive synthesison inheritance practices in non-egalitarian societies in Europe and Asia wherethe stem family system shaped practices, strategies, and behaviours. This publi-cation is drawn from discussions during the conferences organized within theEurasian Project on Population and Family History where contributors concludedthat family studies in Europe and Asia could not be completed without comparingfamilies’ life-cycle evolution and without using different sources and methods suchas censuses, family reconstitutions, macro-structural and micro-longitudinalmethods, household typology, network typology, and co-residence analysis.These approaches and methods allow researchers to consider time, family, demo-graphic, individual and structural constraints and to discern gender-differentiatedpatterns and behaviours. The originality of the volume derives first from theauthors’ demonstration that there were similarities, as well as differences, infamily systems both in Europe and Asia, as well as within Europe and withinAsia. Second and most importantly, they show that the house system and thestem family form in particular did not systematically exclude female headshipand heirship either in Europe or in Asia, and that women played a greater rolethan the existing historical literature has acknowledged.In the extensive historiographical, methodological, and bibliographical intro-duction, the co-editors explain the state of current research on household struc-tures in Europe and Asia and the evolution of the debate on the importance ofthe stem family system since the 1960s. The other contributors show that thestem family system in regions of Europe and Asia where the house system wasand is sometimes prevalent today has conditioned household structures andinheritance practices over time, imposing the co-residence of aging parents andtheir single heir, his or her spouse, and their unmarried siblings and children: athree-generational cohabitation with only one married couple and unmarried sib-lings at each generation. These practices clearly shaped families’ and individuals’histories, yet they did not exclude women.Eight specialists on the European family also participate in the discussion.Richard Wall argues that Le Play’s categorization is original because it helps tounderstand family practices regarding the choice of the heir, marriage strategies,inheritance practices, retirement and the destinies of non-inheriting children.Comptes rendus / Book Reviews 417Histoire sociale / Social History, vol. XLIV, no 88 (novembre / November 2011)Le Play’s writings call for a redefinition of household typology, which, for RichardWall, should be more adapted to modern technology and sources. Ju¨rgenSchlumbohn argues that there was no cause-effect relationship between stemfamily household structures and single inheritance practices, stem-family formsbeing adopted by landed as well as landless families at different times and fordifferent reasons in Germany. Josef Ehmer clearly indicates that emotional tiesin Austria prevailed over material ties and therefore the “stem family” valuesdid not apply to the Austrian family. Jim Brown reached a similar conclusion inhis study of Lower Austria. Sølvi Sogner, for her part, argues that the conceptof “stem family” in Norway does not apply despite families’ recent attempt toestablish nobility lineages. In Finland, by contrast, Beatrice Moring explains,stem-family forms have prevailed over time, with landed families advocating forsingle male inheritance, generally through the first-born son (male primogenitureleading to the proletarianization of the excluded children), while landless familiesfavoured nuclear family forms. In northern countries, families have showed a greatcapacity for adaptation through decisions over the selection of the single heirdepending on conditions such as individual character (compatibility for cohabita-tion), demography (family size and marriage age), and new economic realities(professional urban or industrial opportunities). For Picardy-Wallonia,Antoinette Fauve-Chamoux argues that the stem-family system evolved in asimilar way as in the Pyrenees in the nineteenth century, with a more traditionalstem-family household form which required male or female single inheritance,early parental retirement at times, the compensation of the excluded siblings,and the heir’s cohabitation with parents and unmarried siblings. In EasternEurope, the situation was quite different according to Karl Kaser. Apart fromRomania where both the stem family and the nuclear household systems pre-vailed, the rest of Eastern Europe favoured the joint household form wheresons shared heirship and headship. To conclude on the European family,authors agree that more research needs to be completed to understand the specificmechanisms and processes of household formation and inheritance practices, andinquire on the ways in which families managed to implement unequal inheritancepractices despite equal partition imposed by the Civil Code.Similarly, the second part of the publication highlights the evolution of thedebate over the stem family system in Asia. Most of the articles are aboutJapan and there are not enough on the rest of Asia where research is still burgeon-ing. Two articles are on the Ie system in Japan — one by Chiyo Yonemura andMary Louise Nagata and the other by Emiko Ochiai. Three other articlesanalyze the Japanese stem family system and its life course evolution, one pre-sented by Satomi Kurosu, another by Hideki Nakazato, and the last one byMary Louise Nagata. Outside Japan, household and family studies are scarce.The volume presents only five studies on other Asian countries: two on Koreaby Hanhee Hahm and Paik Sungjong; one on Vietnam by Khuat Thu Hong,one on Thailand by Bhassorn Limanonda, and finally one on China byMichel Cartier.418 Histoire sociale / Social HistoryHistoire sociale / Social History, vol. XLIV, no 88 (novembre / November 2011)The contributors came to the conclusion that, due to a paucity of scholarly lit-erature on the family outside Japan, it is difficult to map Asian family systems andanalyze their processes and evolution. In addition studies are complex because ofthe diversity of regional, demographic, family, and cultural priorities, conditions,and practices. On the contrary, in Japan where family studies are advanced,research has clearly determined the diversity of family systems. Some regionshave favoured mostly large-sized stem families as in northern Japan or large-sized extended families as in southwestern Japan while others have primarilybeen composed of small-sized nuclear families as in central Japan. Hence, histor-ians have identified three different Japanese household forms with practices ofearly or late marriage, families encouraging temporary domestic service fornon-heirs, and even for heirs in some cases. Stem-family and single inheritancepractices in Japan have aimed at preventing property partition with the goal tosecure the full transmission of the family assets (rural and urban) to one childfrom one generation to the next. The single child was generally the first-bornson, but daughters were not excluded. Heiresses thus brought sons in the house,later to become “adopted sons.” In the other Asian countries, family studies asa recent field of research needs additional analysis to contribute to the mappingof family systems in Asia and globally.This comprehensive contribution proposes a valuable synthesis on the currentdebates around the stem family. Yet further analysis needs to be undertaken tobetter justify regional diversity over time, to map European and Asian familyforms and practices, and to propose a global, comparative approach in the studyof the family systems and processes.Marie-Pierre ArrizabalagaUniversite´ de Cergy-Pontoise, FranceGITLIN, Jay — The Bourgeois Frontier: French Towns, French Traders & AmericanExpansion. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010. Pp. 269.Jay Gitlin’s The Bourgeois Frontier is a remarkable book that combines commer-cial history and genealogy to create an incredibly detailed yet easily digestible nar-rative that seeks to insert the story of the French — or more specifically Frenchmerchants — into the American grand narrative. Through an exploration of theFrench experience in the early American Midwest, Gitlin effectively shows thatFrench merchants were no bit players in the expansion of the American empire,but rather helped “broker the transition to an American regime of settlement(p. 187).” These French merchants engaged in diverse activities as Indianagents, founders of towns, fur traders, land speculators, financiers and early indus-trialists. Gitlin’s ability to connect the dots between French towns and French mer-chant families leaves us with a web of commercial and kinship connections in whathe identifies as the Creole Corridor from Detroit to New Orleans. Moreover, heimpressively places these merchants and their families in a broader context andComptes rendus / Book Reviews 419Histoire sociale / Social History, vol. XLIV, no 88 (novembre / November 2011)

FAUVE-CHAMOUX, Antoinette, and Ochiai, EMIKO (eds.) — The Stem Family in Eurasian Perspective. Revisiting House Societies, 17th–20th centuries.

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FAUVE-CHAMOUX, Antoinette, and Ochiai, EMIKO (eds.) — The Stem Family in Eurasian Perspective. Revisiting House Societies, 17th–20th centuries.

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Histoire sociale / Social History (E-Journal, York University)