INTRODUCTION

The large and complex households reported from the Balkans have excited scholarly attention for many years; to intellectuals who were themselves living in an urban–industrial environment and in conjugal units that seldom contained any added relatives other than an unwelcome mother-in-law, households reputed to have up to a hundred members demanded explanation. Such explanations have taken a variety of forms: historical, evolutionist, functional, psychological, economic, legalist. Most of them have had implicit or explicit political or ideological intent, or have at least had such intent attributed to them. They may regard the complex household as a survival of a more primitive state common to many people, or typical of ‘retarded’ development, or as a retention of alleged Slavic tendencies to peaceful cooperation in contrast to Germanic individuality and aggressiveness. They may suggest social conditions that stimulated its growth: the need for a body of coresident males for defense in frontier situations, the existence of a hearth tax or similar dues that made group living more economical, the advantages to household economy in a finer division of labor – or those that led to its decline: the introduction of private property and of a money economy that stimulated individuality and the division of extended households. Some discussions even attribute variation in the form of the complex household to invidious differences in national character.

With a few notable exceptions, discussions of these households have focused on legal, economic, and political aspects.