Sollicitations conjoncturelles des cercles de parenté : position du problème à partir du milieu rural français (XVe-XVIIIe siècles)

Abstract

This article seeks to determine to what degree family networks in modem rural France, when called upon, transcended the role attributed to them by home-families (not necessarily nuclear families). A study of bails, guardianships and (will) executors reveals that family networks were called upon only when the home-family was, or was assumed to be, incapable of solving conjunctural problems on their own. In such conditions, family members outside the home would appear to have been called upon both because of the constraints accompanying the problems and through habit, meaning that one family member would be called upon rather than another. These habits did not fit into a single System but into various ones, in which one System appears often to have been predominant, while the lesser Systems were not neccessarily immutable.