The Stem Family in the French Basque Country: Sare in the Nineteenth Century

Abstract

Land-owners in Sare continued to practice impartible inheritance in the nine teenth century in order to protect the family house and the eco-demographic equilibrium of the community. But these practices, which in the Ancien Régime prescribed the selection of the first-born male or female child (aînesse intégrale), evolved in the nineteenth century as a great number of household heads opted for the selection of any male or female child to inherit the family house and property. These new practices perpetuated a stem-family system in which two conjugal units, with or without unmarried siblings, coresided in the earlier and later stages of the life cycle of their households, and sometimes changed into conjugal units halfway through the cycle. Stem-family households thus continued to evolve in three phases, from stem to conjugal to stem—the stem-family phases being longer among the wealthier households that could afford to support one or several unmarried siblings, and shorter among the poorer households whose farmstead was too small to feed more than two conjugal units.