Fertility Trends, Marriage Patterns, and Savant Typologies in Albanian Context

Abstract

In this article, the author focuses on the speculative literalism and typologism in current scholarship to construct a taken-for-granted view, taking issue especially with many points raised in the literature on the subject that have associated fertility rates in Albania more closely with the existence of patriarchal cultural traits. This leads the author to argue that the specific rationale for the myth of many children, high fertility rates, and complex family structures in Albanian context, as elsewhere in patrilineal societies, is an ideological elaboration of patriarchy. Methodologically, the analysis of the standard view of childbearing, based on standard ethnographic methods, traditional historical sources and aggregate demographic data, is aimed to illustrate the inadequacy of the historical—ethnographic paradigm against the available empirical evidence. In turn, understanding how ideological elements are emphasized in cultural activism should lead, against current scholarship claims, to an understanding of the way in which the urgent need for male children must have been to hide away other more troubling reasons.