Customer Reviews

Property, Production, and Family in Neckarhausen, 1700-1870 (Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology)

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This is a fantastic piece of research, patiently exploring patterns of change among the families of a German village. The surprisingly thorough records of Neckarhausen village give Sabean an almost intimate access to these people's lives. As wider currents of history ripple through the village, Sabean captures shifts in the ground rules of human relations. For one example, as German law removed the legal authority of husbands over wives, the question naturally arose: If men had no right to beat or kill their wives, what would stop women from leaving abusive marriages? Increasingly the answer was: nothing. If the neighbors and police would both defend a fleeing woman from attack by her husband, then force in a marriage was suddenly quite counterproductive. It now seemed that neither clergymen nor family "heads" could hold their flocks by force. The "subordinates" would only vote with their feet, toward a more loving environment if they could see one. So through the 1700s and 1800s in Germany, the rate of separation between spouses grew. Studies of local records show that in most separation cases, the wives left their husbands, usually for drunkenness, physical abuse, and/or wasting family resources. The abandoned husbands often appealed to their local pastors or priests, trying to have the church exercise its old authority and force the wives to return. With each passing decade it worked less often.

Sabean's approach, I think, is close to the best for researching and writing history.

Sabean's monograph is indeed very specialised. He has performed intensive research on the village of Neckarhausen, for the period 1700-1870. The surviving archives that he plumbed are impressive in the voluminous details from which he has culled this book.

The period was chosen largely because during this time, the idea of Germany arose, instead of a collection of fractious regions. Also, the Industrial Revolution that started in Britain in the late 1700s has spread to Germany, triggering massive changes.

The book goes into such issues as the social changes, including those between husband and wife. Plus the extended family kinships, and how these affected the distribution of labour and property. We also see how the relationship between lord and peasant loosened under early industrialisation. Paralleling similar changes in Britain, with which the reader might perhaps be more familiar.