Folk regulation of drinking in Finland

Abstract

Stereotypical ideas of Finnish drinking habits have not included the concept of folk regulation, or ethnocontrol. Until the 1950s, the majority of Finnish ‘folk’ were members of the rural population. Traditional Finnish drinking has been characterised as unrestrained, or at least unregulated. When studying the folklore, memories and ethnographic descriptions of agrarian culture in the 19th and 20th centuries, the picture of a people who engage in unrestrained drinking changes. Finnish peasants an rural workers had developed different forms of control by which the village community, the household and the family could limit drinking, especially the negative effects of excessive drinking. Ways of restraining the use of alcohol included at least 1) an economic rationale and the self-control of the master of the farm; this was complemented by family and household control, 2) rules governing drinking occasions (who was allowed to drink, how much, who supervised order, what was allowed and what not when the person was drunk), 3) the control exerted by the village community and the neighbours (stigmatisation, foiling the establishment of a pair relationship), 4) oral discourse about drinking (true stories about drinkers, belief and origin legends, songs, proverbs) and 5) magic and folk medicine (the prevention and cure of alcohol-related harm).