Family strategies, inheritance systems and the care of the elderly in historical perspective : eastern and western Finland

Abstract

When structuring the famous North West European household system, Hajnal excluded Finland on the assumption that the household system in Finland in the 18th and 19th centuries varied radically from the Northwest European pattern and more closesly resembled the one described as Eastern European (Hajnal 1965, 1983). Studies on local and regional level have revealed different family patterns not only in urban and rural environments but also in the countryside in the east and the west. In western Finland stem-families were common while in eastern Finland multiple family households with horizontal extension are frequently found. The origin of these differences can be traced to diverging systems within the framework of pre-industrial rural primary production. The economy created a favourable ground for specific arrangements of landownership and inheritance. Landless households in the east and the west were less complex in structure, and overall figures are largely affected by variation in social structure. The capacity of coping with old age changed over time. In the 18th century a large proportion of the elderly could be cared for within the stem or multiple family systems. However, the increasing social stratification in the 19th century placed many elderly people in a difficult position. The more that is known about how families functioned in the past, the clearer it becomes, that for different types of societies and at different times families have developed strategies to cope with restraints put upon them, and have * Address all communications to Beatrice Moring, Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure 27, Prumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1QA, England.