EMMANUEL TODD’S FAMILY STRUCTURES (From HBD Chick) absolute nuclear family – no

EMMANUEL TODD’S FAMILY STRUCTURES

(From HBD Chick)

absolute nuclear family

– no cohabitation of married children with their parents

– no precise inheritance rules; frequent use of wills

– no marriage between the children of brothers

– anglo-saxons, netherlands, denmark

– christianity, capitalism, ‘libertarian’ liberalism, feminism

egalitarian nuclear family

– no cohabitation of married children with their parents

– equality of brothers laid down by inheritance rules

– no marriage between the children of brothers.

– northern france, northern italy, central and southern spain, central portugal, greece, romania, poland, latin america, ethiopia

– christianity (catholicism); the “liberte, egalite, fraternite” form of liberalism

authoritarian family

– cohabitation of the married heir with this parents

– inequality of brothers laid down by inheritance rules, transfer of an unbroken patrimony to one of the sons

– little or no marriage between the children of two brothers

– germany, austria, sweden, norway, belgium, bohemia, scotland, ireland, peripheral regions of france, northern spain, northern portugal, japan, korea, jews, romany gypsies

– edit 01/08/12: socialism/bureaucratic socialism or social democracy, catholicism. fascism sometimes, various separatist and autonomous (anti-universalist) movements (think german federalism)

exogamous community family

– cohabitation of married sons and their parents

– equality between brothers defined by rules of inheritance

– no marriage between the children of two brothers

– russia, yugoslavia, slovakia, bulgaria, hungary, finland, albania, central italy, china, vietnam, cuba, north india (note that many of these countries, the eastern european ones, also have a tradition of marrying young)

– communism, edit 01/08/12: socialism

endogamous community family

– cohabitation of married sons with their parents

– equality between brothers established by inheritance rules

– frequent marriage between the children of brothers

– arab world, turkey, iran, afghanistan, pakistan, azerbaijan, turkmenistan, uzbekistan, tadzhikistan

– islam

asymmetrical community family

– cohabitation of married sons and their parents

– equality between brothers laid down by inheritance rules

– prohibition on marriages between the children of brothers, but a preference for marriages between the children of brothers and sisters

– southern India

– hinduism; a variety of communism unlike that found elsewhere

anomic family

– cohabitation of married children with their parents rejected in theory but accepted in practice

– uncertainty about equality between brothers: inheritance rules egalitarian in theory but flexible in practice

– consanguine marriage possible and sometimes frequent

– burma, cambodia, laos, thailand, malaysia, indonesia, philippines, madagascar, south-american indian cultures

the eighth family type, which is additional to todd’s scheme (i.e. it doesn’t fit the three definitional dichotomies he uses, which maybe indicates a problem with his definitions?), is the african family. todd sort-of throws his hands up in the air and declares that african family systems are simply hopeless to understand (because they don’t fit his model) — and, anyway, there’s not enough data on them (which was prolly true in the early 1980s — and maybe still is now!). anyway, here’s all he has to say about the africans:

african systems

– instability of the household

– polygyny