Critical comment about home and family in the rural Alto (High) Minho

Abstract

Using empirical data collected between 1978 and 1982, in two freguesias (parishes) belonging to the concelho (municipality) of Ponte da Barca, the author studies the connection between home and family in the rural Alto Minho. The family composition in some homes of two rural freguesias in 1979-80 is related to the subsistance prototype as the main element of the peasant world view. These homes are divided into three types: homes leaded by unmarried people, homes constituted by nuclear families and homes formed by numerous families. This variation is explained according to a strategic logic of the maximization of presence within the peasant society, namely whenever associated to the land possession. The author concludes that the conception of home implied in the
subsistance prototype - a conception determining the strategic logic of family composition of those homes - has outlived, in its main aspects; the social and cultural changes for the last twenty years.