Goody- Bonhomme

The title states that household has a hidden economy. I believe this refers to the actual daily householding practices of householding, that may vary greatly from what is written in law and was is recorded as data. Goody explains that sources limit our understanding of this hidden economy of past society's householding practices, as we have discussed before in class. I wonder then about his observations about socially accepted practices in medival French society. For example, he says that younger brothers could only marry if they humilated themselves and moved into a heiress's home. What sources reveal these types of occurences?
What would reveal socially acceptable and unacceptable practices of todays household? One could make generalizations perhaps based on legal codes assocated with the houshold and census reports. However, there exsist so many complexities revolving around the household. Would these sources shed light on these comeplexities, which are imperative in understanding what the modern household is and how it functions?

Goody - Bao

One of the first questions that came to mind as I was reading the Goody article was in regard to the written norms versus the common norms within a society and how it was possible that the values of different levels of society differed based on their familial obligations. It was particularly interesting to me to see that the Church also attempted to instill in people what they believed to be the proper way of marriage and that there was still as significant percentage of individuals carrying on what they had always been doing. In that sense, does that outcast them from the society that the Church was trying to build? Or rather, why did the Church instill such strict rules of marriage if they knew that people were still going to hold on to their own practices? It seems strange to me to think that the Church was dominant in the religious aspect if its teachings were not necessarily followed or adhered to by the people they were supposedly guiding. It would make more sense, perhaps, for the Church to have legitimized the practices of the lay population rather than trying to get them to conform to their own opinion of a proper moral society. While it seems important to have some type of structured social system, the article suggests that the Church was aware of the populations not following the standard, and yet they didn't seem to do much about it other than try to shift public notions regarding marrying close relatives, remarrying, divorce, etc - things which now have different meanings associated. It is very interesting to see the changes across time and across populations because it seems that the mentality behind what is socially acceptable and unacceptable depends a great deal on the influential players which, in this case, was religion, but can extend to other things like environment, housing, culture, etc.

Goody- Nastacio

I thought it was particularly interesting that at a funeral in the 19th century, the window would receive proposals for a new marriage and by the time the funeral ended, there would already be an arrangement. I thought it was also interesting that the rules that the Church proposed were not as practical for the people they were imposing the rules on. This gave rise to tensions in society since citizens were not allowed to do what they thought was in their best interest. Why did the Church not acknowledge that and provide more reasonable or lenient rules? Many of the rules made were not even followed, for example, the rule that forbade citizens from marrying kin or being able to remarry. Although it wasn't allowed by the church it provided financial and emotional help to the window. I also did not think it was fair that if a wife leaves her husband, he is not allowed to marry anyone else and must take her back if she returns.

Eglash: Bonhomme

Englash explains the various reasons why African fractals use the materials they do and are constructed and decorated in the way that they are. These reasons range from the availability of certain materials in the natural environment, to military and historical significance, to purely decorative reasons. The way in which the fractals are built revolve around how life in the fractal is lived and it is a direct consequence of each fractals' setting and history. Each of the various reasons why the fractal is constructed in the particular way it is is not haphazard, rather it has evolved and the building structure itself is deeply connected with daily life.
What then, happens if basic construction material becomes scarce or the fractal is otherwise unable to be built in a traditionally accurate way? More broadly, how specifically is daily life affected when the basic household structure is altered? Are kinship ties strained or stressed when they are contained within an altered physical structure?
Continuing on this line of thought then, I wonder about these questions in the context of immigrant families who move and live in physical structures that are starkly different than that in which kinship ties were created and cultivated? How would a family that is used to living and functioning in a fractal function in an apartment building? Daily living and familial relations are shaped by the structure they are within and these presumably change to fit whatever mold they are in. The question is how does this shifting occur, and where specifically in daily life does it most affect?

GILLESPIE--MAYDICK

In Susan Gillespie's reading "Maya, Nested Houses", she speaks about the physical "house" that the different tribes of Mayans lived in and different rituals they went through. For example, she speaks about the Tzeltal Maya and how they have different ways of interpreting the house and overall rationale for equating humans. This specific tribe believed that the house, just like humans, needed to be fed. They believed that once the house was built the house needed to be fed not with food but with candles and good scents for the house or else they believed it would die. In a way I sort of agree with this thinking as I think that a house should always smell nice and be treated with the same amount of respect that you would treat your own body.

EGLASH- Wharton

"Indigenous" vs. Industrial Design

From reading the Eglash, I notice that the societies he describes as demonstrating fractal housing patterns are usually societies that maintain a direct link and survival off of nature in a way that European and other Anglo cultures do not. Does a fractal structure imply that the society has more of a respect and link to nature and the order of nature than a European, industrial society does? Why are there societies and tribes in specific areas of the world who maintain a less destructive relationship with nature than the individuals and societies of "developed" nations do? Does housing structure in terms of fractal patterns, materials used, subsistence economy, etc. correlate directly to the relationship with nature a society or people has?

Levi-Strauss - Fuller

Levi-Strauss points out the dynamic nature of household inheritance and lineage in the Kwakiutl society. Inheritance in terms of family names and titles operate very differently in this reading, and we see that there are rules in place for a matrilineal system of family name and marriage; however, this system still heavily relies on the patrilineal system for the passing on of certain rights. I also found it very interesting the spiritual lineages, origin, and etc., were a basis for passing on of lines (174), taking a far broader view of the idea of family in terms of history than we have really observed before.

These intricacies of the rules of Kwakiutl family lineages (Boas himself had a difficult time defining the system with English words, finally resorting to a Kwakiutl word) depict the natural complexities of the family and household, in terms of definitions. From community to community around the Kwakiutl, the structures of household differed; likewise, in the States today, with the huge melting pot of cultures, household to household varies in their familial structure depending on their history, cultural background, and so forth.

In the reading on the Maya I was struck by the image of house as a miniature version of the cosmos. The analogous relationship between the human body and the house was also intriguing. This reading makes me question the symbolic meaning of my house. I was also struck by the notion held by the modern Maya of the Yucatan that the living are “replacements for the dead”, kind of “recycled souls”. Wasn’t this idea of shared identity also present in the Melanesian World?

Fortes—D Wilson

It would be extremely convenient if we could come up with a universally-applicable model of kinship relations and their interactions with external structures, of the whole somehow created within a community, but as Fortes so succinctly puts it, “in social structure we are always faced with parts and relations of diverse nature and variability” (3). Darn then—variability in communities, specifically in their organization of social ties, is both help and a hindrance to illuminating this issue—lots of examples to ponder, but many differences to explain and many contexts to keep in mind. How then do we approach any study of domestic life? Patterns perhaps?

In his description of the social ties employed by the Ashanti, Fortes describes a series of cycles of material life, experienced in tandem with institutional life. Writes Fortes, “Ties of kinship, marriage, and affinity regulate the structure of domestic and family groups, which have no permanent existence in time. Each domestic group comes into being, grows and expands, and finally dissolves. But the institutions it embodies, and the mode of organization it exhibits, are essential features of the social structure” (7). If we cannot come up with a model of domestic life, we can at least realise that there are phases shared between groups. These are both timeless and ephemeral, individual and collective. Regulations orchestrated by existing institutions play a large role in organizing these domestic ties, but at which points do institutions interfere with family life? Is the state or other body present at all times? One cannot separate one from the other.

LEVI-STRAUSS—CLARK

Levi-Strauss’ article on the social organization of the Kwakiutl was very interesting, but left me with quite a few questions. For instance, does their matrilineal system have anything to do with the fact that you can always know who the mother of a child is, but it can be much less certain who the father is? Has that been much of an issue for the Kwakiutl, or are there completely different reasons? Also, and these may be a tad bit specific, but page 165 states, “the woman brings as a dower her father’s position and privileges to her husband, who, however, is not allowed to use them himself, but acquires them for the use of his son.” In this case, where do the women get their position and privileges? Or do they just not because they are female? If a family only has daughters, is the wife’s father’s position and privileges lost on that line?

Thirdly, page 166 states, “an individual desirous of ‘entering a house’ where there was no marriageable daughter, would symbolically marry a son, and failing a son, a part of the body (arm or leg) of the house chief, or even a piece of furniture.” In the situation that a man marries a piece of furniture to enter a house, how binding is the agreement? Can he be “divorced” from the furniture if he finds a more suitable mate that could actually bear him children?

Herlihy and Klapisch-Zuber_Marcus

Despite the Catasto's status as what Herlihy and Klapisch-Zuber call "a spectacular failure," the authors nonetheless suggest some weighty and long-term social implications of the survey. These range from increasing the birthrate in Florence through generous deduction per family member to the encouragement of economic productivity through exemptions on work animals, tools, and the domicile. Furthermore, Kerlihy and Klapisch-Zuber imply that the Catasto may have encouraged the Florentine Renaissance by deeming household decorations "essential" and untaxable expenses(as part of the domicile, massarizie di casa), thereby encouraging investment in artistic production. Thus, the authors claim: "The Florentine Catasto is not only a mine of social data; it is also an early example of the manipulation of fiscal policies to achieve desired social goals" (10). Certainly the causality, or even the correlation, between Catasto rules and social realities, though believable, demands more evidence than Herlihy and Klapisch-Zuber provide, but besides for that, I find their claim somewhat unconvincing. The social impact of the Catasto as it is presented in this chapter of "Tuscans and their Families" seems largely incidental and unrelated to the basic purpose of the Catasto. These phenomena seem much more like salutary side-effects than "desired social goals." Furthermore, given the brief lifespan of the Catasto yet its sustained salience as a reference for future surveys, it would be interesting to explore more concretely what kinds of social implications the Catasto model had in later permutations.

Levi-Strauss_Marcus

Thus promoted to the rank of second nature, culture offers history a stage worthy of itself. By gluing together real interests and mythical pedigrees, it procures for the enterprises of the great a starting point endowed with absolute value.

-Claude Levi-Strauss, The Way of the Mask

Speaking on the idioms of relatedness by which notions of alliance and descent are variously construed, Claude Levi-Strauss expounds upon the vast potential of human cultures to forge new systems of meaning and belonging. Aside from his unfashionably functionalist slant and what may be a rather problematic demarcation of the ‘mythical’ and the ‘real,’ Levi-Strauss nevertheless expresses what is unquestionably an enduring—in fact, crucial—element of the anthropological investigation: the sheer wonderment and fascination at the manifold ways by which the world’s peoples sense and make sense of their lives. Indeed, I think it is safe to assume that despite some dramatic shifts in anthropological theory and methods since Levi-Strauss’ The Way of the Mask, studies of kinship retain this basic mission of unearthing the profound and complex ways by which taken-for-granted manners of being familial and familiar provide order and meaning to social life.

Notwithstanding the plurality of kinship configurations across the world—matrilineality and patrilineality, hypergomy and hypogamy, exogamy and endogamy, matrilocality and patrilocality—the work of comparative anthropology reveals some striking parallels that can just as easily challenge existing models of relatedness as they can forge new ones. One particularly salient example of such a ‘category-confounder’ was Levi-Strauss’ societes a maison, ‘House societies,’ the elaboration of his theory of alliance that had already been revolutionizing the anthropological study of kinship (previously dominated by theories of descent). Levi-Strauss posited ‘the House’ as an underlying unit of social organization in societies between the kin-based and class-based levels of social evolution. The most significant feature of the House is its hybridity, combining and negotiating otherwise oppositional poles of kinship for the economic and political expediency of its namesakes and residents. That is, rather than being mutually exclusive, the rules of matrilineality and patrilineality, hypergamy and hypogamy, alliance and descent, exogamy and endogamy, and heredity and election, are united and made substitutable in the House for the convenience of the household. The House is legitimized through the idiom of kinship, ensuring its perpetuity through the continuous transmission of wealth, names, and privileges down a real or “mythical” line of descent.

The power of Levi-Strauss’s House theory lies in that fact that it set the precedent for anthropological attention to the dynamic processes of corporation and cohabitation where strict lineage theory had previously presided. Thus, it provided the framework through which to analyze societies whose systems of relatedness could not be reduced to descent. It is a fascinating irony to note that by proposing a new category for kinship, Levi-Strauss opened up a space for analyzing the more intimate intricacies of lived, household dynamics of alliance beyond functionalist and formalist categorization itself. For our purposes of studying the household, it provides an critical model for how households remain socially salient despite the ambiguities and vicissitudes of such constituent factors as household composition and the configuration of kinship, the questions we have been raising of how you can have a family household if its members do not necessarily live together continuously and are not necessarily "related."

Levi-Strauss - Bao

Levi-Strauss explains that "On all levels of social life, from family to the state, the house is therefore an institutional creation that permits compounding forces which, everywhere else, seem only destined to mutual exclusion because of their contradictory bends" (184). This reading brought up the unavoidable topic of language and kinship relations based upon kinship terms. Some of the examples Levi-Strauss gave were regarding the distinction between siblings versus cousins (or lack thereof in some cultures) and the use of the beau/belle in noble society as honorifics. I was able to draw a connection to my own languages - English, Mongolian, and Mandarin. I've always had trouble with the English terminology for familial relations, but not so much with the others (perhaps because I learned them first?). The Mongolian and Mandarin words for family members are very similar in that there are terms for both the maternal and paternal sides of the family, as well as sibling terms for cousins that can be preceded with a denotative maternal/paternal word if you need to specify. It has always been interesting to me that age is secondary when it comes to relations - I once met a 86 year old woman who requested that I call her "older sister" rather than "grandmother" because of distant family relations and the generational ranks. But what I find curious about language is that it has the power to impact the individual's relations to other family members, both immediate and extended. And we can see, though history, that family and "house" can have a huge social and political impact. Language really acts as one important type of medium through which we connect ourselves to people, having both the ability to strengthen or reduce ties to individuals. The question that I had after finishing this particular article was at what point does the relationship become too construed by political/social manipulation -- or, to put it differently, how does the "house" distinguish who is family and who isn't?

Gillespie- Nastacio

It was interesting to see how the Mayans personified the house. Not only did they compare the physical aspects of a house to a human body but they also incorporated the spiritual aspects of a person into the house as well. This brings up the question of what happens if a family moves to a different house? Do these spirits remain a part of the house or do they migrate as well? It seemed as if the Mayans thought of the house as a superior being who contained the spirits of their ancestors. Every aspect of the house had a symbolic meaning, including the materials used to build the house and the dimensions that correlated to the terrain. The Mayans defined the house as belonging to a multifamily group and not only included the physical house, but also the crops, trees and fences. This article introduces the concept that the house is a frame of daily activity. There are many aspects of the Mayan ideal of a house that are different from modern ideals for example, ancestors and their spirits were thought to stay in the house. However, a similarity still remains that the house is the center for a family- no matter where family members spend their time, at the end of the day they will always return to the home.

BOOTH-MAYDICK

The Booth reading "Life and Labour of The People in London" stood out to me before I even read it. It stood out because for three years of my life from when I was three years old to six I lived in London. Obviously this is not speaking about the time period that I lived there but nevertheless it caught my interest. It was interesting to see all of the different percentages of the workers at the time in London and the wages they received. Something that really jumped out at me was that costers and street sellers were the highest in numbers. I would have thought that with the most competition that a lot of these people would move onto different jobs where it was not so crowded and not as much competition. All in all this reading was very amusing not only because of the numbers that are shown but because it shows the numbers of a place that I once lived in my life and did not understand fully because I was so young.

HANSON--MAYDICK

In the reading by Hanson "The Other Greeks", there were a few specific parts that stuck out in particular to me. It was interesting to see that in Attica during the Polis period the wealthiest landowners only held about four to five times more land then the average yeoman. It was then compared to the likes of modern day America and how it was not the same ratio at all. Wealthy landowners in modern day America can hold up to at least ten times more land then the average citizen. So everything was much more toned down in a sense. It was also interesting to me later on in the reading that the Demos was in some sense just like the Polis in terms of citizenship and landowning capabilities. But it completely left out the poorer residents that owned little land. These are just a few things that stuck out to me while doing the reading by Hanson.

Herlihy- O.MICHAEL

One thing that was brought to my attention while reading Herlihy, was how Florence went about creating their taxing policies. Florence appeared to be in a steep decline, which is why i can understand the heavy push for taxation. They imposed several tax regimes in hope to restore lost revenue. I was surprised and displeased with how Florence took such a strong initiative with their forced loans policy. It seemed unfair and unethical that the wealthiest and poorest people were excluded from this policy and that it was left to the middle class to support these loans. While reading I could not believe the corruptness that went through Florence at the time. Herlihy says on page 4, "In spite of safeguards, powerful citizens could still manipulate assessments: they protected themselves, rewarded friends, and punished enemies." A question that came in mind was, Were there other ways in which Florence could help facilitate their economic struggle without excluding the wealthiest families?

Booth- O.MICHAEL

In Booth's "On the City", he discusses how a crowding space is a measure of poverty as well as who is the head of the household and what the wages of the household are. I have to say that i agree with his theory, because there are several boundaries that play a role when deciding how "poor" a family really is. The head of the household, most likely the father, was either involved in one of the trades, or was a field or coal worker. If a family of four or six was crowded into a household with two rooms then there shows a level of poverty. If the family had a high source of income then why wouldn't they want to live in a larger living space? It doesn't make sense to me that they would continue to live in a small area. After viewing Booth's map of London, i was amazed to see how much of the map was covered by extreme poverty. These areas were usually populated by criminals and other vigilantes. I was also amazed to see how there were very few areas that were occupied by middle to upper class families. Booth also states that an individuals occupation determined how poor you and your family were. (The book-binding trade shows results that approximately 44% of those employed lived under crowded conditions which meant that you were most likely poor.

Herlihy - Wosu

One thing that has consistently astonished me throughout these readings is the annual income of households and cities. For example: Herlihy states that Florence's yearly income circa 1240 was 780,000 pounds. Also, consider the household incomes Woolgar discusses in the Great Household - "Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, [had a yearly income of] about 6,000 pounds" (Woolgar, p.4). Woolgar mentions him as one of those who earned more than the others. These seem like such small amounts if we compare them to what people earn today in our (the US) society. Perhaps, half a millennium from now, our descendants will think differently of the figures that we currently regard as substantial.

Another thing that caught my attention was the diversity of households. It was easy to fall into a simplistic and inchoate way of thinking of households - parents, children (and others who live with them: servants etc.) On page 12, Herlihy gives insight into the difficulty of "assigning certain types of persons to the proper household" under the law of the Catasto. These types of persons include widows with grown children and orphans. This got me to thinking about the various types of households/families that we have today. How accommodating are policies (regarding marriage, parenthood and family life) to non-traditional households here in the U.S. and in other parts of the world? What patterns of family structure are evolving ? Are these changes lasting or are they transient?

Woolgar - Wosu

Woolgar’s piece really illuminated to me the interconnectedness of the household and society through his depiction of the gentle-servants. The gentle-servants attended to their lords not only inside the house but also outside the house. The translation of etiquette from the internal to the external shows not only the household affecting the society, but also an upholding of the household's influence in the society.The household’s influence is further portrayed when you see the gentle servants attend to the lord’s friends in the same manner as they would attend the lord (I assume the lord’s friends are of the same social standing as he.)

By treating the lord’s friends in the same way, they help to strengthen the seam of stratification into the societal fabric. For something to be legitimized in society, it must not only be created, but people’s actions must uphold it. "Households (made up of individuals) make up society," like Danielle said in class.

It led me to think about the ways by which we, as people in today’s twenty-first century society, learn about our place in society from within our households and go on to maintain this "place" in our interactions with others. I questioned if some of the assertions that Woolgar makes in his exploration of the Great household bear relevance today. Some of the most interesting of these assertions were: that the preservation of status was a function of the Great Household, and that “perception of difference was sharper [in the Great household] than elsewhere” (p. 18).

The conclusion I reached was yes! Woolgar's assertions have some relevance in our time. To explore Woolgar's argument that differences in society are apparent in the household, I thought about an employer and a maid relationship. In America and most parts of the world today, if one employs a maid, he/she will most likely not be of the same socio-economic status as the employer. Although the employer will (hopefully) respect the maid, the maid is not treated like a family member. Richer people usually employ poorer people as maids and even in our present day equal society, socio-economic differences still rear their heads in interactions between maids and employers. These differences underlie interactions between us and people who are of a different socio-economic class.

To show and reinforce their societal statuses, families will usually buy houses (not all the time, but for the most part) near people of similar social standing. Finally, we often hear of people going into careers (that they might or might not like) because perhaps, coming from a prestigious family, they have a reputation to maintain.

CAVEAT: The discussion in class about individuals who do not currently belong to a household engenders a question of what happens to the households that these individuals had once maintained. Sometimes, these currently homeless individuals had been very pivotal (e.g. breadwinners) to the functioning of their households. It might be interesting to look at how the disintegration of such key persons contributes to reproduction of homelessness, mental illness etc in society?

Eglash - Fuller

Eglash draws an interesting picture of African architecture. The aspects of location, religious beliefs, and livelihood were all drawn out as inspiration for these architectural designs. These layouts reflect on social structure and deep-rooted beliefs about themselves. I found most interesting the different methods of organization of these living units: in the Kotoko households, we see that the structures reflect patrilineage, where newer families and households build themselves around an older family. In the Nankani household, however, the focus is far more spiritually defined, and the ideas of the masculine and feminine are played out, with the feminine being at the core of the architectural structure. These approaches are almost completely opposite - one focuses on the basic family unit, and the other focuses on the religious undertones of the feminine and masculine dichotomy. I also found interesting that the different groups described by Eglash pick and choose elements of their own culture that are important to them, and build these structures that reflect their ideas and society in such a transparent and unified way.

Woolgar-Nastacio

It is interesting to note how the household was viewed in the British Isles in the Middle Ages. The idea of a household varies from what we would today call a modern household. The idea of a household back then dealt with a more formal idea of lordship and turned into a political statement. The household's goal was to demonstrate their opulence or imitate the wealth of royalty. For those citizens who could not afford such luxuries, their households were brought together by a common set of ideals. This propagates the idea that the main purpose of the household was to exhibit the honor, status and general livelihood of the lord. Therefore, privacy was not a idea that was readily acknowledged-instead it was the public life that appealed to most. It is also interesting to note that a household was not only made up by those persons who were receiving food and receiving payment but also a household compassed the poor who were receiving charity from members within a particular house. However, it was still seen that those within the household were present only to serve the lord and his family. This brings up the question: to what extent does the household exist to please the head of the household?

Fortes-Meyer- Bonhomme

Woolgars peice on mediveval English households is interesting, both in method and findings. This reading to me, although dense with extensive facts about the families, brought up an interesting question of methodological limit in householding studies. Knowing what we do now about the limitations of the census in representing our society today, it is intereting to think about the limitations that undoubtedly occur in Woolgar's peice. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that the methodology is not limited per se, but rather that his sources are what provide the limitation. As we know, the census has a very specific purpose and that is to gain an accurate representation of communities in order to be able to provide services to them accordingly. Naturally, when a source such as the census is extrapolated and used in an anhropological context to understand kinship and household dynamics and processes, the findings are also limited. It is imperative to ask what the function of the data that Woolgar uses were? Why were these collected? These questions are important to ask because they dictate who is included and who isn't, which is just as important in any anthropological attempt to analyse the household.
Woolgar does acknowledge the integrety of the study of 'household antiquities' in that data has been very carefully recorded, throughout the history of this feild of study. However, the question of the purpose of the data is still imperative when analyzing the findings.

Levi-Strauss - WHARTON

I thought that the connections Levi-Strauss pointed out between Kwakiutl naming systems and European naming systems were very insightful. I have read various sources pertaining to the ways in which the Kwakiutl amass and take on names, and no source has made as clear connection to another system of naming as Levi-Strauss does. The point in the article that I took issue with was the discussion of material and immaterial wealth in the two types of societies. In Kwakiutl culture, from previous readings, I was under the impression that the inheritance of immaterial wealth was a more complex and important aspect of their culture than Levi-Strauss makes it out to be in his comparison with European societies. For example, unlike in most European cultures, the Kwakiutl people inherit many names throughout their lifetimes. These names may come from ancestors long-deceased who did something honorable, or may be derived from a task the individual completes to progress to the next stage of life. The amassing of names in Kwakiutl culture not only says a lot about his lineage, but also about him as an individual. In this way, it seems to me more complex than the European naming system, as in a Western European society, usually the name or title is something one carries with himself from birth, or adds onto through marriage or promotion in society. What I find interesting about the Kwakiutl system is the fact that an individual has the power to change one's name completely. In Europe, if you are born into a bad family, the connotation of that name stays with you forever. But in the Kwakiutl system, an individual is able to earn a name for oneself, and almost shake off the connotations that a previous, less impressive family name may have held. This makes me ponder that, in all naming systems, is it possible to change the emphasis from lineage to individual if one is not proud of where they came from? In Western societies, is it truly possible to "make a name for oneself?"

Gregory - Wharton

While reading 'Whatever happened to householding?', it was surprising to realize how profoundly association with a specific household can shape one’s life experience. From peasant proprietorships to Jainism to the Mafia, when an individual is born into a well-established household, it generally seems as if one’s life path is decided for him. Members of peasant households will always be peasants; members of Mafia families will be inclined to view illegal behavior as socially acceptable and in many situations, admirable; and Jainists will always be considered extremely noble in Indian culture, regardless of personal integrity. With household membership comes a label. This leads me to question if it is possible for an individual of a certain caste/social demographic/specific household to truly “make a name for himself?” Or if, regardless of personal pursuits, the implications of household will forever prevent an individual from separating from family and implicative history?

BOOTH--WILSON

In his discussion of the apparent relationship between experiencing poverty and living in overcrowded space, Charles Booth acknowledges the flaw in the method of measurement: "we are compelled by our method to treat the desire for sufficient house accommodation as a force acting uniformly or proportionately on all, but this is by no means always the case" (5). This leaves quite a few people out: the minimalists that have no interest in big homes, those that feel as if family beds are a symbol of closeness, etc. I lived briefly with a family of five in India that shared two sleeping pads each night--and they had other rooms and beds readily available, mostly used for International volunteers! I asked one of the daughters one evening if she got tired of having no space, only to realise how stupid my question was--the two of us had completely different ideas of space and the "personal bubble." To her, I was poorer for not having someone with whom to curl up and I was encouraged to nap alongside the family once we'd finished lunch together.

Now, this crowding and 19th century London crowding are very different--the public health concerns in London differed greatly from those in rural Pudukkottai, for example, so poverty was not an immediate health-risk--but it does beg the question of what qualifies as "sufficient" house room or wealth? What standards apply? "Sufficiency" and its implications for conceptualising house-holding was a point raised in previous readings. Also, in thinking about methods for measuring household make-ups or economies, etc, how much leeway should be allowed for those that don't fit the norm? If poverty was equated to decreased quality of life and over-crowding implied lesser length of life due to the spread of disease and the lack of interventions, perhaps measuring the ratio of persons to rooms, for all of its faults, would be a most effective measure of quality of poverty.

Bible Passage- Nastacio

The Bible passage number 26 deals with a censuses in Israel by family for the purpose of men twenty years of age and older serving in the Israel Army. The term family deals with all of the inhabitants of Israel. They are referred to as a family, however they do not actually live in a house together but rather just share the bond of being from the same nation. Men who were at least twenty years old have a duty to serve and protect their family. This provides an example of a family that does not live under the same roof or in a household but rather shares a common nationality.

Laslett and Herlihy notes--last bit of background for papers, all!

Laslett

“In spite of attempts at complete definition, important concepts have been left indefinite, as for example that of ‘work’” (538).

“Presence on the spot in the house or whatever counted as home, working there, reproducing there, or simply usually being there, has been the almost universal criterion of those who have written out household descriptions. Very seldom have they taken note of connections among households or among persons within separate households” (516).

As a number of responses acknowledged, an impregnable definition of either household or work is almost impossible to agree upon. Residency remains a terminally inconsistent term and may not even require an actual “residence,” as opposed to something “familiar”. I hesitate in writing “household” completely off as a universal concept, however, in that though the specific, or even the broader descriptions of different households change, even are in contrast to one another—households acting as descriptions of blood ties, marital trade-offs, work relationships, organization for financial accounting, etc—the idea of the household remains, something that is implicitly “held” in a grouping. This grouping is or becomes ordered in some way—the “householder” emerges, and could be a master craftsman, a breadwinner, or a mother for example. Issues of gender, age and experience enter into the hierarchy. The aim? Self-sufficiency.

It is here that we encounter a quandary: what about households that are not self-sufficient? Are they households? Those mentioned in the article included households headed by poor widows or wage earners out of work. What interventions maintain these households—how are they regulated? Domestic group. Household. Work group. How do these interrelate to create a “familiar” experience?

Herlihy

If the household is a unit of measurement for organization and regulation of a population, the purpose of the household in the case of the Tuscans in the 1420s was to maintain the state through economic support—serve as a means for efficient tax collection. But how did this economic reality affect the way in which the household was experienced on a daily basis by (a) the citizens and (b) the state? Wrote Herlihy and Klapisch-Zuber: “we see our Tuscan families through the spectacles of tax collectors. We must determine what they marked clearly, and what they ignored” (1).

Florentine financial history:

• Forced loans: “[the government] required that its citizens lend the needed moneys; and it promised to pay interest on the sums it took, and ultimately to repay the loans themselves, when peace and prosperity allowed” (3)
o Implications? Citizens have vested interest in bringing about peace to avoid being forced to lend. What behavior ensued? Citizen responsiveness? State enforcement?
o Better methods for assessing tax rates needed. Policies for division of revenue? Agency for citizens now in a financial relationship with state?
• Estimo—rural, measured the ability of a household to pay in relation to neighbors, not “true worth of its holdings” (6)
o Teste, “head” of household—male, “able-bodied”—subject to special tax rate
o Earlier studies allowed for a comparison, but caused problems in methodology because surveys were not identical
• Venice: wealth, “real property” assessed, and tools of production excluded to prevent potentially industrious residents from leaving. Exemption provided for family members. Adult males not taxed.
• Florence: wealth assessed, but not property without returns, tools. Deductions for family members, but not members of work group (“salaried person”). Adult males taxed.
• Via Catasti: unit of measurement was “fiscal hearth”—tax-paying household
o Definition of family outlined, work and domestic groups separated
o Could be “resident” in one house, head of another—male servants
o Could be living elsewhere, but be included in a Florentine household if close relative
o Household—blood, obligations of support, reliance, responsibility, kinship
o What becomes of those households that are not self-sufficient? How does the state consider them? How does social policy react to them?
o How do collection methods reflect cultural or national policies or biases?

Eglash - Bao

The discussion of architectural settlements and fractal patterns was particularly intriguing to me because it made me wonder how we as individuals perceive our physical domains versus what they look like from the perspective of an outsider. The factors that seem to influence the actual layout of a household, at least from what can be gathered from the reading, seem to include things such as religion, agricultural significance, livestock, etc. I thought it was particularly interesting that the way in which an individual household was architecturally designed mimicked the way in which the village looked overall. It appears as though an individual can learn a great deal from the way in which a grouping of these houses are arranged. Some of these things might be the importance of certain activities, such as farming or herding, as well as the importance of family members and where they are placed within the house. One example that really stood out to me was that of the household working outward - where, in order to allow additional members to continue living together, they simply added on the original structure. Another example that stood was out was that of the household mimicking the human life cycle and the household as the womb of the earth. While there are invisible ties that connect families together, it is equally important, if not moreso, to consider the physical structure in which families reside and what it is that the household really represents to the community and to the individuals.

Herlihy- Nastacio

In Tuscans and their Families, Herlihy and Klapisch-Zuber discuss the fiscal system in ancient Florence. It is interesting to note that despite the many disasters that Florence went through they did not suffer from a decrease of revenues. Direct taxes were imposed at first depending on real estate holdings, or the Estimo. However, it this estimo was later charged on a household basis. The estimo was based on a households ability to pay in comparison to those who lived around them. A special tax was imposed on adult males in the village who were thought of as the "heads" of the villages. Slaves were considered household property whereas close relatives living abroad were counted as household members. The household was not based on who actually lived in the house. Instead it was based on who was related by blood or marriage.

HANSON--CLARK

In many ways, the egalitarian farming structure discussed at length in Hanson’s piece is much like familial structures we have talked about in class. The fairly socialist concept revolves around the idea that all farmers work together as a community—like a household. And though the Greeks worked very hard to make sure things were divided equitably and no one had a much larger farm than anyone else, Hanson even points out, “In agriculture the quality rather than the quantity, of farmland is the real key to productivity” (183). Is this true for family households today? Does the quality of members make things more effective, or does sheer number have more weight?

Hanson also talks about the differences between the Greek farming techniques and those in America today—all the while implying the Greeks had a better system. I have to wonder, though, if this egalitarian farming concept were brought to America, how things would turn out. Though there would surely be a rough transition, I wonder if, fifty years down the road, things would actually be better in any way. What if an egalitarian household structure was enforced instead? What kind of differences would that make? Would they have similar outcomes?

Laslett comment (from Amy Wharton)

The census data provided in this excerpt caused me to think about the United States divided into regions, and how "households" across our country vary in terms of structure. Are their regional associations or region-specific household structures in the United States?

Although the United States is one country while Europe is many, the geographical area of the United States is much larger than any single European country (sans Russia). However, I feel like the cultural impacts upon families, households, and "housefuls" in Europe are much stronger than here in USA. This leads me to question, is our country too young to contain households as kin groups as well as work groups? Is the "work group" designation of a household something that predates households of the United States, or something that has simply been phased out or occurs in very small proportion due to the "melting pot" status of our country, as well as the preference for big business and giant agricultural endeavors? Does our affinity for Big Business limit the kin-group/work-group structure in a way that is not exemplified in Europe?

Again, this reading makes me question if "household" truly has one universal meaning, or if it is something different in every culture, region, etc. If this is so, is it truly a valid concept to use when describing and comparing family or residential units?

Herilhy - Fuller

Herilhy discusses the shift from land taxes to indirect taxes, which was formed to accommodate the shift of wealth to cities and different areas than before. With the shift to the Castato, who made up a household came into question. Around 1424, the three guidelines for fiscal reform were centered largely around households, which became a more profitable basis for taxation than landholding – despite the difficulty and time commitment taxing households took. With the Castato, exempt from these taxes were blood-related dependents – such as (non-able-bodied) sons, daughters, and nieces, etcetera, who lived with the household head. However, males who were capable of working and above a certain age were taxed – seemingly a sort of household within a household, in the eyes of the government. How universal can the idea of household be in light of the institutions we have studied? Especially comparing our ideas of the household in the census to the definition of the household under the Castato, these distinctions seem to be modified for the application by different institutions, enough to keep the definition of household from being a solidly reliable one. Also, as the census brought up last week, there is a schism in the question of who else can be considered as part of a household and family: whose household are widows considered to be in? Orphans? This seems to be an issue that the Castato was not able to solidly resolve.

Also, Herilhy briefly makes a distinction between the hearth and the household, which he refrains from elaborating on (Herilhy 13). How are these different? Is the household determined by blood relationships, and the hearth more by mutual obligations people have?

Hanson - Bao

The Hanson article on agricultural egalitarianism brings up some of the topics we have recently been discussing in class. The parallels to our current system of organizing and defining the census are quite intriguing. For instance, the idea of a farming community is similar to what we would consider a "household" in census definitions. However, in terms of actual everyday life and living, it seems almost as though the agrarian economy of the Ancient Greek system is much more idealistic and has ceased to be the normal expected way of living. It is as though the current household in modern society has a much more decentralized manner of operation about it - that the functions and expectations of those belonging to the household have changed with industrialization and modernization. However, I think it might be difficult to really draw conclusions on the sense of community and obligation within modern households because of the large variety of culture and tradition, as well as the difference in living domain (urban, suburban, rural) within just our country alone. For those who do not farm, which is a large portion of the population, what is it that ties them to their family? Or is the growing trend that these individuals no longer feel obligated? A follow up question to this train of thought would then be how does one obtain a sense of community and belonging in their social networks? There may be some phenomena about the household - whether it be the physical aspect of the living structure or the social side of receiving/reciprocating - that is dictating how we perceive our ties to our families and how we live under those constructs.

Hanson-Bonhomme

The 'idealization of agrarianism' that Hanson described, and the subsequent criticism and suspicion of anything that seemed to undermine is related to the way that the modern western understanding of kinship and household is approached from an ideological stand point. Anything that seems to undermine the traditional family construct is seen as suspect, especially on the conservative end of the moral spectrum. Whether it is an extension of what the term 'family' is thought to encompass, or changing roles within the household, these shifts are met with resistance. This was central in womans rights movements, as women a redefinition of the womans role in the home began to shift. This is evident in resistance against same-sex households, single parent households and cohabitation households.
Hanson speaks of agrarianism had a "ethical force"where business took on "unnatural connotations." The use of unnaturalness is in itself fascinating, because the same term is used to describe those very social occurances that threaten the status quo of householding and kinship.
These ties and the ideological superiority that they have acquired are in and of themselves difficult to navigate and ennumerate, but this obtuseness makes them easy to defend.

Gregory - Fuller

The “Us-Group” versus the “Out-Group”

Languages have references to “us-groups” and kinships, as Gregory illustrated with his example of words for brotherhood in Hindi. This is similarly seen in Japanese, where “us-groups” and “out-groups” dynamically change depending on the situation – who one is talking to, in reference to what, and the conversers’ relationship hierarchically to the listener and to the subject being discussed. In this respect, the idea of a household as an “us-group,” lends a sense of strength/security that alliances and numbers provide. Financially more stable (keeping the rich wealthy, for example), kinship ties and household are not merely social organizations but also important economic ones in many societies in which business, financial, and social ties can be inherited and passed around. In such household groups where finances come into play, divisions are created between different “us-groups,” as, like Gregory noted for example, the richer get richer and the poorer, poorer (Gregory 148). How generalized is the “us-group,” and how far does it extend in terms of families and households? Is it a concept that can be applied universally, or is it society specific?

Gregory -- Makowski

As discussed in class last Tuesday (1/26), the term household has different connotations when spoken in different languages. Our interpretation of the term household in English included ideas such as people who eat and live together, people who share a common responsibility, and people/structures holding each other together. The term household is much more specific than the term family because the term household not only implies a relationship between a group of people, but also that the people physically live together. The term family simply implies a relationship between a group of people. This idea about the term family exemplified in one of the readings from this week:

In the Bible passage number 26, the term family is used to refer to all of the people of Israel, bonded into the unit of a family by nationalism. These people do not all physically live together and are therefore not part of a household, but they all share a common responsibility for their country, thus making them a family. The responsibility mentioned in this passage specifically falls upon the children of Israel over the age of twenty that are able to go to war. All of those who are able to go to war must accept this responsibility of fighting for their country as a type of family duty. Of course everyone else also does their part, but this is just one example. Essentially, the difference between household and family is as follows: a household is specifically those who physically live together whereas as a family can be any group of people united by a common responsibility, such is the case with the people of Israel.

GREGORY--WILSON

An earlier response asked: how useful is the term “universal concept” to us in understanding family and the household? As Gregory defines it, a universal concept is “transcultural and transhistorical [belonging] to the realm of human nature rather than historically specific forms of human society” (139). Though one can argue that no impression, thought or theory should be taken from the context whence it came, we need the model of a “universal” concept, of a set of criteria that somehow circumnavigate the bounds of a single philosophy or culture, to acknowledge that there could exist some commonalities between certain traditions, even if there exists no definitive “human nature” (at least one upon which we could agree!). Our dialogue must include “universal concept”—the term itself, but more importantly the ability to approach an entity and appreciate that it does not exist in isolation. The household could serve as a tool of this broad model, one finding that the household is the site of many of the most basic transactions that show how humans behave: self-interest, equality, different instincts or motivations that appear in other settings or all settings, and that we could use in observing and thinking about future interactions (150).