Kinship in neckarhausen, 1700-1870
Editorial CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Mainland Spain
- Publisher CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
- ISBN13 9780521586573
- ISBN10 0521586577
- Type Book
- Bookbinding Rustic
Subjects
Anthropology. General ThemesKinship in neckarhausen, 1700-1870
Editorial CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Mainland Spain
Book Details
This work analyzes shifts in the relations of families, households, and individuals in a single German village during the transition to a modern social structure and cultural order. Sabean's findings call into question the idea that the more modern society became, the less kin mattered. Rather, the opposite happened. During "modernization," close kin developed a flexible set of exchanges, passing marriage partners, godparents, political favors, work contacts, and financial guarantees back and forth. In many families, generation after generation married cousins. Sabean also argues that the new kinship systems were fundamental for class formation, and he repositions women in the center of a political culture of alliance construction. Modern Europe became a kinship "hot" society during the modern era, only to see the modern alliance system break apart during the transition to the postmodern era.