Household mind and the ecology of the central Pyrenees in the 19th century: Fathers, sons, and collective landed property

History of the Family 10 (2005) 249 – 270

Household mind and the ecology of the central Pyrenees in the 19th century: Fathers, sons, and collective landed property B Rolande Bonnain T Centre de Recherches Historiques, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, 54, Bd. Raspail, 75006 Paris Cedex 06, France

Abstract In this regional case study of the de´partement of Hautes-Pyre´ne´es in the 19th century, we focus on two Pyrenean villages in two different geographical contexts where a strong stem-family system prevailed. While Marsac, located in the lowlands of the de´partement, had little communal land, Laborde, located in the highland hills of the Baronnies and remote from urban centers, had control over large collective property. Collective land and forest played a prominent part in socioeconomic production as a result of their flexible contribution to rural community development. This explains historical struggles over their use. Our hypothesis is that confrontations between the privileged heir and other siblings were fewer in the agropastoral communities of the highlands because of the many agricultural tasks that required cooperative efforts. Relationships in the family sphere as well as in the collective sphere in the lowlands were likely to differ from those of upland communities, where the rearing of cattle and flocks was the predominant activity and imposed strict segregation and social enclosures within communities. Thus, ecology might have played a role in improving the quality of relationships within the domestic group. D 2005 Published by Elsevier Inc. Keywords: Reproduction; Collective property; Patriarchal authority; Coresidence; Pyrenees

B

bCollective propertyQ in the Pyrenees refers to the land that belonged to a community or the land held collectively by many communities and that was organized later in the form of bvalleysQ or a syndicate of communes. Access to these collective properties derived from residential rights. T Tel.: +33 1 01 42 06 31 22; fax: +33 1 01 42 06 31 22. E-mail address: [email protected]. 1081-602X/$ - see front matter D 2005 Published by Elsevier Inc. doi:10.1016/j.hisfam.2005.03.006

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1. Introduction Historians and anthropologists have often been concerned about the relationships between geographic environment, economic activities, and the peculiar social forms that resulted from them. In addition, they have demonstrated that the analysis of domestic groups cannot be envisioned without considering their actual composition or socioeconomic conditions. Finally, the connectedness of the family–close or distant–cannot always be considered as an exogenous variable (Salitot, 2000). Thus, historians and anthropologists have studied the characteristics of pastoral societies in Europe and Asia (Digard, 1974; Leroi-Gourhan, 1945). More recently, they have focused on highland societies and have demonstrated the recurrent features of family reproduction in these societies. As has been recognized for a long time, the house and single inheritance systems of the Pyrenees, Massif Central, and certain regions of the Swiss and Italian Alps are no longer the only form of family organization in highland areas. Other systems prevail, as in the Jura mountains or the Balkan peninsula, where daughters are systematically excluded from the headship to benefit their brothers and where only one son is designated as the father’s successor (Derouet, 1993; Kaser, 1994, 1996; Salitot, 1988, 2000). The house, sometimes identified by a name other than the family’s surname, has already been well studied as a system and in all its manifestations. It is a complex social unit predominant in the Pyrenees from the highlands to the surrounding plains. More than property ownership, the ownership of a house gave an access claim to collective property, both as a production and consumption unit. In addition, as the axis of the family relational system, the house organized itself as different forms of the stem family. Its continuity was insured by an unequal devolution mode; the selection of the single heir was often conditioned by birthright (the firstborn) and sex. Male primogeniture, which benefited the eldest son, was observed everywhere except in the highlands of the central Pyrenees and in the Basque Country, where birthright was strictly observed. Only the heir could bring a wife into the family home. The other brothers, called younger cadets (in the full social sense of non-heirs), had to establish themselves elsewhere (whether they married or migrated over a short or long distance). Meanwhile, not all unmarried younger siblings left home; a few stayed at home with the heir. In the house, the household head (cap de maysou or cap d’oustau) was in charge of the family unit of production and assigned duties according to the status of the house members. Their status totally depended upon their situation with regard to patrimony and gender. Were younger cadets considered unpaid servants who obeyed unquestioningly the authority of the household head, their brother? Or were they considered wholly as family members who contributed to the continuity of the house as a result of their hard work and their withdrawal from inheritance claims? This question is not easy to answer when considering the Pyrenean house. Above all else, economic generalizations, which place emphasis only upon the means of production, must be avoided. Should we limit our analysis using psycho-sociological explanations that consider age, sex, and personality as decisive factors rooted in habit and education? The house is indeed a unit of production. Its survival depended on the adequate management of the means of production and of the work force. It was not just a matter of workmanship submitted to the head of a hierarchical team. It also involved the distribution of duties and imposed standardized relationships among all the members of the household in an anthropic environment. Thus, birth order and age, difference in age between brothers, and their level of technical knowledge must be taken into account before venturing any generalizations. Socioeconomic conditions therefore did not affect house owners in the lowlands in the same way as they did in the highlands. Moreover, in highland houses, the agropastoral system prevailed, insuring

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the highest productivity on the reduced size of arable land. Transhumance was adopted. It was linked to doubling, sometimes trebling, of employment in the house, habitat in the villages, barns in the middle lands, and huts in the high pastures. Animals were kept in sheds and out on their owners’ meadows during the winter and driven to the middle lands at the end of March. They then spent June to September on the grazing grounds of the high mountains across the Pays Basque to Comminges.1 Since the Middle Ages, highland communities or groups of highland communities have used these collectively suitable land spaces.2 As a result of the wide spaces that stretched along the highland territories of the de´partement (about 40% of the land), collective property has played a prominent role in social reproduction. Its material contribution and organization sometimes generated struggles over its exclusive use, yet determined the group that could use it. Collective property primarily fueled community cohesion as villages had to scramble to preserve it and keep its access free for all the inhabitants of the village. Subsequently, it generated segregation as access was based on anteriority of residence. Historically, collective property allowed highlanders to subsist when supplies became scarce. In addition, non-heirs took up residence during the demographic growth at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries, finding employment in woodworking, gathering, hunting, and fishing. Was the function of collective property and communal land limited to these surviving territorial conditions? Did they only play their part in the collective sphere by not overstepping the bounds of the house? Not really. As early as the beginning of the 1980s, historical researchers have shown that there were indeed direct connections between family structure and the size and nature of the farmland (Derouet, 1994; Kertzer, 1984). Contemporary literary work on the historical factors influencing the culture of two neighboring villages highlighted the fact that the distribution of power within the domestic group seemed homologous to the structure of local political power (Cole & Wolf, 1974). Recently, new studies on collective property (Vivier, 1996, 2002) have demonstrated that, in Pyrenean countries, the family considered collective land as an annex to the house. Besides, only heads of houses (oustau) residing in the village could have a hand in communal property management. Did cohesion at the community level, where collective property existed, also play a part at the family farming level? More precisely, were non-heirs traditionally treated merely as domestic servants3 in spite of their kinship ties to parents and the inheriting brother? Did local cohesion and the need for cheap labor in the house affect inheritance status, particularly between fathers (and mothers) and their children in the same way it did between siblings of different sexes? Our hypothesis is that confrontations between the privileged heir and other siblings were fewer in agropastoral communities of the highlands because of the many agricultural tasks that required cooperative efforts.4 Relationships in the family sphere, as well as in the collective sphere in the lowlands, were likely to differ from those of upland communities where the rearing of cattle and flocks was the predominant activity and imposed strict segregation and social

1 Transfer of flocks to high mountains took place before summer. Cattle transhumance occurred also before winter in the opposite direction, from the highland hills and mountain villages to the lowlands. During the Ancient Re´gime, flocks from the Lavedan Valley used to graze near Tarbes in the lowlands during winter. Even in the 20th century, sheepherders from the Aure highland valley used winter pastures in more distant lowlands in the de´partement of Gers. 2 The central Pyrenees had twelve associations of this type, which managed 71,000 ha of territory. 3 Bourdieu (1962) precisely described the status of younger siblings bdedicatedQ to celibacy in the second half of the 20th century. Although pointing out the problem of their unpaid service, he did not reach any broader conclusion. 4 In other articles, I have studied the relationships between wife and husband and between mother and children.

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enclosures within communities. Thus, ecology might have played a role in improving the quality of relationships within the domestic group. To answer the above questions, we shall compare and analyze two Pyrenean villages in their different geographical contexts during the 19th century. Though different, both villages had the same administrative history and the same unequal mode of patrimonial devolution to insure the continuity of the house. While one of the villages, Marsac, located in the lowlands of the de´partement of HautesPyre´ne´es, had little communal land, the other village, Laborde, located in the highlands of the de´partement and remote from urban centers, had control over large collective property (see Figs. 1 and 2). These geographic and material conditions tremendously affected power relations within the domestic group.

Fig. 1. Map of the Hautes-Pyre´ne´es de´partement, showing the location of the two villages studied: Laborde in the Baronnies region of the highland hills and Marsac in the lowland.

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2. Pyrenean families face 19th century difficulties During the 19th century, when Pyrenean families wished to reproduce ancient custom laws, they faced enormous difficulties. They had to deal with the demographic growth that started at the end of the 18th century and grew until the end of the July Monarchy (1848). From 1806 to 1846, the population of the de´partement of Hautes-Pyre´ne´es climbed from 198,762 to 244,059, an increase of about one-quarter (22.8% precisely) (see Archives de´partementales des Hautes-Pyre´ne´es, hereafter abbreviated ADHP, 6M 25). In the two mountain districts, 55% of the de´partement, there lived 56.8% of the population, a situation aggravated by successive crises in 1816, 1832, and 1847. In addition to the demographic increase, property disintegrated as a result of the revolutionary laws and the Civil Code of 1804. The number of land assessments, which had already increased since the end of the 18th century, grew by 40.4% between 1826 and 1858, from 72,368 to 101,581 (Statistiques de la France, 2e se´rie, 7, 16). The Pyreneans cultivated new plants to improve their living conditions. To the Indian corn, they added potato cultivation. They improved their cultivation techniques and changed their rotation systems. More importantly, they increased the size of their flocks whenever possible. Between 1795 and 1852, the number of sheep increased tremendously, by 22.7% overall. The data underestimate the importance of sheep-raising in some highland communities, however. In the mountain area, sheep raising actually increased by 42.6%. For many Pyreneans, multiple activities were vital; textile and wood work supplemented their scarce revenues from land cultivation. When these solutions soon became insufficient, people began to emigrate, which later affected the demographic evolution of the de´partement. From 1846 onward, the size of the population began to decrease, first because of permanent migration to southwestern France and later because of emigration to America (first South, then North) and to Algeria.

3. Marsac, a lowland village near the city of Tarbes Marsac is a small lowland village on the left bank of the Adour River, an area of 148 ha with hardly any differentiation in elevation. At the beginning of the 19th century, the local diet consisted of wheat, corn, and beans (La Boulinie`re, 1807). Vineyards were important, occupying about a third of the total area. During the Restoration (1814–1830), 63 landowning residents, less than half of the population, owned only a patch of land (between 0.1 and 0.49 ha). These were day laborers and small craftsmen who generally owned a house with its adjoining garden. Approximately ten inhabitants were a little better off because they owned 0.5–1 ha of land. One of them was the local surgeon and the others were village craftsmen (the blacksmith and weavers). Among those owning 3–5 ha of land (the maximum amount residents could own), only five houses were able to engage in and make a living from full-time farming. In addition, there were a few tenants, who were permanently established in the village. Not only was family wealth generally modest, but land distribution was so unequal that 46% of the territory was owned by non-residents who primarily cultivated vineyards. Since urban centers were close by, products could easily be sold in the local markets. By contrast, a few landowners managed to purchase land and enlarge their properties (larger than the local average) as Louis Habine did. Habine was born in Ade´ (close to the regional city of Lourdes) and made a fortune in New Orleans. He acquired 30 ha of land in Marsac. Other landowners were the Marquis of Monlezun, who owned 6.5 ha of land in

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Table 1 Childrena in Marsac (1800–1896) Males Females a

Departed

Married

Remained single at home

Total

125 (56.6%) 129 (60.0%)

63 (28.5%) 61 (28.4%)

33 (14.9%) 25 (11.6%)

221 215

Children surviving at age 20, according to family reconstitution.

Marsac, yet lived in a fine castle of white stone and brick situated in the nearby village of Tostat.5 And Laporte, the President of the Tarbes Tribunal, possessed 6 ha of land in Marsac. As non-residents, Habine, Monlezun, and Laporte employed journeymen all year round and engaged some estivandiers (seasonal workers) during the summer and autumn to work on their vineyards. Because those rich landowners had money, they trusted the land market to make profits and prevented the emergence of medium-sized property owners. In the middle of the 19th century, when the grapes were attacked by vine mildew, they sold their property, and the villagers turned to the rearing of Anglo-Arabian horses for the army at the rate of one brood mare per farm. To supplement their income, inhabitants of Marsac worked as day laborers for nearby landowners.6 They also practiced seasonal migration as land workers. The data on child conceptions between 1800 and 1853 show peaks in October, January, and February, a small shift in April, and ebb from July to September. This curve indicates the observance of religious practices (Carnival and Lent) and the agricultural calendar, with men departing during the summer (from July to September) to harvest; thresh wheat; and sow wheat, barley, oats, and rye in cold and heavy soil. Men returned home in October to plant in the rich soil of the lowlands of the de´partement of Hautes-Pyre´ne´es (La Boulinie`re, 1807). Although the practice of seasonal migration contributed to the permanence of the house system in Marsac, no pattern of permanent migration was detected during the first half of the 19th century. Unlike Laborde, Marsac had neither textile nor woodworking craftsmen. In 1872, 90% of the working population was employed in agriculture. Those who did not farm were craftsmen who made and repaired agricultural tools. There were also repairing carpenters, a shoemaker, a sabot-maker, and three seamstresses who supplied the local clothing demand. This modest handicraft activity does give an account of the existing local needs, but it did not allow new settlements in the village because arable land was no longer available. In Marsac, the absence of common forests as traditional providers of raw material and activities was chiefly the reason why proto-industry could not develop as it did in the highlands of the Baronnies (Fauve-Chamoux, 1984).7 After 1846, the population began to decrease because younger siblings, who could not marry heiresses in the village or settle in new houses, resorted to temporary migration, then to multiple activities, and finally to permanent emigration (see Table 1). Like neighboring Basques and Bearnais of the same period, they departed for South America–first to Uruguay and then Argentina–assisted by emigration agents.

5 The Marquis of Monlezun eventually sold the land he owned in the village in shares of 25–75 ares of land in 1847, 1856, and 1864 (1 are = 100 m2). 6 In 1872, only seven houses employed full-time servants, four of whom cultivated the land. 7 In Marsac in 1826, there were only 17.7 ha of collective property, a little more than one-tenth of the total communal land. This land, which was located along the infertile bank of the Adour River, provided a little grass but no timber or firewood.

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As a result of massive emigration, the sex ratio in the villages became imbalanced in the long run. In 1866, a departmental inquiry showed that in Marsac, there were 60 men for 103 women, many noninheriting brothers having emigrated to America. Under such conditions, heiresses made bhypogamicQ marriages with men of lower social status originating from other villages. The Tarbes foundling hospital, for example, provided a workforce from among their orphaned children, some of whom were employed as servants in mountain villages. This solution was not really satisfying for all houses, and marriage was no longer considered as the only possibility for settlement in the villages. Between 1835 and 1896, 71 marriages celebrated in Marsac involved non-customary couples of younger boys and younger girls (cadets and cadettes). In addition, almost one of every three marriages preceded the newly married couple’s departure from the village. By 1900, as a result of this emigration, there was only about one couple for every existing house in the village, a situation that differed strikingly from the early 19th century when couples exceeded the number of houses in the village. And the number of houses grew over time from about 50 at the beginning of the century to 57 during the Restoration to 69 in 1876 (ADHP 6M 85). Some buildings were simply divided vertically to become twin households. When new couples were unable to establish themselves in the village, they might cohabit with married siblings for a while, but this was not customary. What was social reproduction, such as in an open village, where one could easily go away and then return to establish oneself, after temporary migration? Permanent migration to distant places played an important and sometimes exclusive role in the succession strategies to secure single inheritance. Departure from the house, however, generally occurred without any plans to return.

4. Laborde: One of the four communities of the Barony of Esparros As a result of its altitude, climate, and soil, however, the demographic and economic conditions affected this community differently. Laborde is a highland village, located in the Baronnies hills region between two valleys (Aure and Campan) and north of high Pyrenean mountains. Although the village population had free access to the large Baronnies Mountain—as one of the four communities of the Barony of Esparros, it was remote from regional cities and their bourgeoisie. Its economy was based on cereal cultivation and animal rearing. The village stretches across an area of 176 ha of rugged terrain with occasional drop-offs along the road from Esparros to Arrodets and Bulan (see Figs. 1 and 2). Arable soil produced cereal crops (wheat, corn, and oats) and potatoes, but production was not sufficient to feed the population. An agricultural inquiry in 1837 revealed that wheat production met only one-third of the demand of the community and corn, only one-half. By contrast, the potato crop exceeded local demands by 10% (ADHP, 6M 263). The social structure of the village was composed of small landholders whose number increased between 1773 (the year of the last seigniorial land records) and 1826. Thirty-four of them, a third of the total landowners, owned less than one-half hectare of land in 1826. They were mostly wood and textile handicraftsmen, whose land was situated next to their houses. Properties of less than 1 ha altogether represented 14.5% of village community land in 1773 and 52% in 1826. Properties of more than 3 ha, all owned by residents, increased by a third and reached 46.4% of the community territory during the same period. The middle-class group (with 24 houses—bgood housesQ and houses owned by craftsmen) owned more than one-quarter of the village land (Bonnain, 1981). In Laborde, land was not a good investment for the urban bourgeoisie, because it was too remote and difficult to cultivate. Eroding soil

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Fig. 2. Map of the Baronnies mountain located south of the Barony of Esparros between the Aure and the Campan valleys.

had to be replaced manually. Land parcels were so scattered that too much time was spent going from one to the others. These conditions were not peculiar only to the village of Laborde. In the whole Baronnies (the high hydrographic basin of the Arros River and its tributaries), bourgeois property occupied 1.9–8.9% of the territory, compared to 4–12% in the rest of France. Similarly, during the Ancien Re´gime, seigniorial property was rather small, reaching 0.2–9.3% of the territory compared to 9– 44% in the entire kingdom. Only one bourgeois family was predominant in Laborde, the Duplans. They were the descendants of a barber, were later involved in liberal professions, and lived permanently in the village. Land distribution in Laborde was shaped in the form of a pyramid, excluding the 13 nonresident proprietors who owned only 4.6% of the communal territory. Generally, sharecropping in the village did not exist except for Dominique Cazalas-Gailhou, who cultivated the land of a land surveyor. CazalasGailhou worked elsewhere before suffering a personal electoral defeat. There were no agricultural day laborers and few servants8, except for four who were employed by the old chemist and his son. The latter had returned from South America where he had been a teacher. These four young men did agricultural

8

In 1872, there were 21 servants for less than 600 inhabitants. The priest and 12 houses employed them.

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and craft work and assisted the pastry cook, the baker of Delhom-Milhas, and the blacksmith. Even in bgood houses,Q there were few servants paid by the year. Traditionally, parents and neighbors occasionally paid for mutual help, or assistance was prescribed by tradition, so that house owners could accomplish the important summer and autumn work without resorting to outside employment. Because they were able to feed their occasional workers, bgood housesQ were obviously those who customarily made the most of these practices and extensively made use of their neighbor’s help. To diversify their incomes in this eco-demographic context, the inhabitants of Laborde found new solutions. They had always been involved in woodworking and sold their products in Spain, peddling during olive-gathering time. After the Napoleonic Wars (1814), however, this migration pattern, both for single and married men, became impossible beyond the Pyrenees. Instead they traveled to southwestern France and east of the Rhone River. For the period between 1813 and 1852, data on child conceptions by month (583 births) show a drop between October and November. As the peddling of wooden objects declined during the period, it was subsequently replaced by the sale of printed papers from October to June. With the abolition of library licenses and the development of the railways at the end of the Second Empire (1871), this type of activity ceased. It was replaced by agricultural work in the de´partement of Gers during autumn and winter as well as by hay gathering in the Aure Valley. Besides these seasonal migrations, there were temporary migrations to find employment in various other trades. For example, local bricklayers and woodcutters took jobs outside Laborde (Bonnain, 2003). In Laborde, wood and textile handicrafts developed over time to satisfy the demands of the local market. While in 1773, there were only three weavers (two old women and one man); by 1826, there were ten weavers. While five artisans worked with wood in the Ancien Re´gime, by 1826, eleven had specific crafts, such as spoon-makers, shovel-makers, and turners. In 1872, craftsmen represented 20% of the working population: seven weavers, two knitters, four dressmakers, and fifteen wood craftsmen (eleven turners and four woodcutters). There were also 17 stonecutters employed in the local quarries of Arribes, a district of Laborde. Since the village was far from cities, a number of artisans and services were needed. There were two innkeepers, two bakers, one grocer, three blacksmiths, four wheelwrights, six carpenters, and three joiners. Among the Duplan clan, the local notables, were the local physician, a chemist, and a notary. When villagers owned large pastures, they could raise livestock. At the end of the Second Empire (1870), the village mayor reported to the census-taker that the 590 inhabitants of Laborde had 45 horses, 270 cows, and about 1000 sheep (ADHP, 6M 36). The meadows of the village, however, could not provide enough pasture for all the cattle. The surface of collective grounds in the village itself only totaled 17.8 ha, one-tenth of the village territory, including the uncultivated seigniorial property of Casteriou added during the Revolution. Fortunately for the villagers, they had access to 2400 ha of land in the Barony mountains, which extended to the peak of Arneille and included the source of the Arros River. In fact, since the Middle Ages, four villages had claimed use of the pastures and forests of these mountains. For decades, they and successive local lords had fought to maintain this right. At the beginning of the Restoration (1815), the Baron de Cardaillac, Lord of the barony of Esparros (of which Laborde was part) sold his castle and his mountain to a bourgeois from Comminges, who decided to profit from his purchase. Constrained by ancient rights established in the 17th century, he presented a request for cantonment. As there were no feudal traditions in this region, the new owner’s request appeared excessive-more so because trade with Spain could not offset the levies. In addition, unlike other highland areas, there was no hot spring to provide any additional revenues (Soulet, 1986).

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Table 2 Childrena in Laborde (1800–1896) Males Females a

Departed

Married

Remained single at home

Total

322 (56.4%) 262 (52.5%)

177 (31.0%) 189 (37.9%)

72 (12.6%) 48 (9.6%)

571 499

Children surviving at age 20, according to family reconstitution.

Relations between villages and this bourgeois owner inevitably became bitter. The national police, the gendarmerie, had to intervene three times. Mayors supported the people under their jurisdiction. Although they finally won their case in 1845 and received joint ownership of three-quarters of the mountain, the cost of the lawsuit left them deeply in debt. In 1860, they organized the Syndicate Commission of the Low Baronnies Mountain. Inhabitants from the four communities bought the remaining quarter, and in 1851, it became the Syndicate of Owners of the High Baronnies Mountain. Some younger siblings were able to establish themselves in the area. The number of houses in Laborde grew faster than in Marsac. There were 57 houses in 1773, 91 in 1826, and 138 at the beginning of the Third Republic (1870) in Laborde, with new houses creeping up the hillsides. Usurpation of collective property supported an increasing number of villagers. Despite these solutions, younger siblings eventually left permanently after trying seasonal and then temporary migration (see Table 2). They chose to go to provincial capitals, such as Bordeaux, Toulouse, or even to Paris. A few went to North and South America, while the majority settled in the new colony of Algeria. As early as 1834, the population began to decline to fewer than 600 inhabitants within twenty years and to 402 inhabitants by 1911. Although the two villages, one in the highlands and the other in the lowlands, seemed to experience similar demographic evolutions (Cole & Wolf, 1974) as a result of the house system predominant there, Laborde developed contrasting patterns of parental relationships. Its agropastoral lifestyle imposed community cohesion, rules, and discipline in the use of pastures and collective land in response to residents’ economic demands for cattle raising.9 While in the lowlands, the rules of a particular jurisdiction governed collective life, in the highlands, one or several communities10 controlled collective pastures and made most decisions on the use of collective land (Zink, 1997). Collective property was reserved for the inhabitants called bneighborsQ. Together they made rules on the use and management of this collective patrimony. More could be said about how access was minutely limited and controlled by this social or territorial group. A bneighborQ had certain privileges, such as permission to cut timber, firewood, or ferns for stable-bedding; to drive pigs to graze on acorns; and to lead cattle to pasture-in the forest in the spring and in high meadows in the summer. These activities were established by rights in the Middle Ages and agreed upon by owners in that period. To enjoy these rights, a bneighborQ had to own residence. This title was transmitted to male heads of houses. Only spinsters and childless widows could be admitted to the besiau (the assembly of neighbors), which named consuls and jurats who governed, watched over, and managed the community. When property was transmitted to an heiress, her husband took the title of

9

The small size of bourgeois property was a consequence of this choice (Derouet, 2001). In Pyrenean lowlands, a single commune managed collective land, while in the highlands, including Baronnies, several communes often ran pastures at higher altitudes. 10

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neighbor, but only after his father-in-law had died. In Laborde, the community was not very attractive because of the poor quality of the soil and the scarcity of land. Only one child per family could settle after marriage, and young couples could enjoy the neighborhood right only after a year of residence and the payment of a fee. In other Pyrenean regions where communities had remained faithful to the King of France and collectively paid dues (cens), the situation was different. Because they enjoyed the residence right that only filiation guaranteed, they could keep out foreigners. This right gave access to community prerogatives, particularly for the use of common ground and goods. Thus, in the mountain villages of the Campan Valley, as in Bareges or even Aspe, there coexisted in the same community inhabitants descended from old houses (if ascendancy could be proved, they were called maisons casale`res) with inhabitants from houses of unproven seniority and with those who were not neighbors. Early on, these villages had a small group who raised animals rather than a large working population who partially abandoned animal rearing for cereal growing (Zink, 1997). As a result of these practices, families kept non-heirs in the village as unmarried sheepherders, preventing them from establishing their own families on cleared land, as, for example, in the village of Aldudes in the Basque Country or in the Azun Valley in Bigorre. The famous Melouga family of Cauterets was obliged to give up sheep raising because family strife drove non-inheriting sons away and no one was left to herd sheep (Le Play, 1884). Similarly, as their sons departed, the family of Henri Fedacou from Pragneres had to sell the sheep when the father died (Buisan, 1984). Despite these differences and their effects on family reproduction and kin relationships within the domestic group, all these Pyrenean regions had similar goals and showed the same collective determination against any attempt to suppress their territorial rights. Community cohesion resulted from the collective management of animal rearing, which imposed transhumance, the tending of various owners’ cattle, and the maintenance and irrigation of private pastures at mid-slope. Cohesion was thus needed to organize the coexistence of two competing economic activities in the villages. These were the reasons why highland communities in the administrative regions (ge´ne´ralite´s) of Auch and Pau resisted royal ordinances and edicts in the third quarter of the 18th century. They did not abolish transhumance rights and did not implement the edict of 1771, which allowed the partition of collective properties (Vivier, 1996). It was precisely these common interests and self-interests as well that led villagers to sue the owner of the Baronnies mountains for the partition of collective land, a lawsuit which lasted throughout the first half of the 19th century, as mentioned earlier. A conflict similar in nature happened in Castelloubon during the same period. Besides community cohesion and territorial control, there were other political concerns in all highland villages. While some Pyrenean villages had strict land rules, those in the lower mountains had more flexible land rules, showing some tolerance toward native younger siblings when they usurped collective land or when villagers exploited forests illegally. Nevertheless, in all mountain villages, it was necessary to find men to perpetuate family rights on collective pastures uphill. These were generally close relatives–an uncle or a brother–while the head of the house remained at home with his wife and children. Despite similar activities, non-heirs did not possess the same status in the house, yet their situation was better in the lower mountains as a result of local custom-in places where the importance of collective land had been preserved, such as Laborde. By contrast, in the area around the regional city of Tarbes, in the lowlands, there were few collective properties because they had been parceled out after 1770, as intendants sought agricultural modernization. By then, the community had already developed markets with the outside world (for

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land, products, and skills). Individualism and the resulting competition seemed to have precedence over older obsolete forms of production. More important, the prevalence of a class of non-residents, who owned large pieces of property and used wage-workers, confirmed the community’s openness. It also confirmed the influence of the national territorial administration and the decline of local collective cohesion. The quasi-absence of collective properties had other consequences. Without pastures, sheep and cattle raising could not develop. Besides, on the farm, it was not necessary to organize a strict division of labor. Non-heirs were not as useful as in the highland area, and their activities were almost transferable to other people. Thus, the geographic environment and economic activities had an effect on local cohesion and the relative necessity of kin labor. Did it also have an effect on domestic behavior and relations within the house?

5. Families face difficulties Family reproduction resulted from an unequal mode of patrimonial devolution throughout the Pyrenean mountains, although it took various forms. During the Ancien Re´gime, written laws or customs allowed house owners to select their heirs when they married or in their wills. Theoretically, parents could choose any one of their children, yet sons always had primacy over daughters. In the Baronnies, these written laws were also observed, although sometimes vestiges of Pyrenean customs prevailed, which conferred succession to the eldest child without gender discrimination (Bonnain, 1986). Other highland communities had similar reproduction practices (ba` l’identiqueQ), and the old Coutume de Lavedan (south of Lourdes) stipulated that customary marriages only took place between an heir (or heiress) and a younger daughter (or son). Rules of patrimonial devolution for customary marriages were different from those for non-customary marriages (between non-heirs and non-heiresses), where the couples were married under a different juridical regime. All their assets became conjugal property to be equally divided among all the children of the next generation.11 Only in the second half of 18th century did the Coutume de Lavedan change the rules so that written laws became available to everyone and every couple. For a while, the Code Civil (1804) caused trouble both to the families of the highlands and the lowlands of the central Pyrenees, yet families continued to transmit the family house to a single heir in each generation. In the 19th century, many observers–curists especially (patients taking the cure at the local spa), and tourists (attracted by the various hot springs and beautiful mountains of Bearn and Bigorre), as well as jurists and folklorists–were fascinated by the Pyrenean house system, its management, individual behavior, and the power exercised by the head over his family. These observers were astonished that families continued to practice primogeniture. To them, these enduring practices reflected the backwardness of the locals and were perceived as a museum of manners and customs. Through observation, they thus found justifications for them and subsequently formulated ideologies. For some observers, such as Frederic Le Play, the Pyrenean family system suited its surroundings, with the bpaterfamiliasQ watching over the integral preservation of the family patrimony to maintain social peace. House members knew their duties and their rights and contributed wholeheartedly to the preservation of the house. Other observers, however, described Pyrenean behavior as uncivilized. For them, the tyranny

11

A younger son was called esterlo (barren) in Bearn and slave in the Bare`ges Valley (Soulet, 1986).

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of the household head over his wife, children, and servants was clearly oppressive. It was imposed by tradition and accounted for superstition. These middle-class travelers’ accounts reflected their respective social backgrounds and ideologies, creating positive or negative ethnotypes. To avoid such errors when studying family environment and behavior, the following criteria must be taken into consideration: the structure of domestic groups; age at marriage; illegitimacy; the impact of migration on family composition; the cohabitation with younger unmarried siblings and widowers; the protection of aging parents, grandchildren, and children of collaterals born elsewhere; and the possible return to the village of those who migrated. These indicators should help in the analysis of individual interactions within the family, leading us to avoid reaching judgmental conclusions. With population pressure, houses increased in number, more so in Laborde than in Marsac. Non-heirs couples were allowed to marry and settle in the community. Indeed, between 1800 and 1872, the number of houses in Marsac increased by 46% even in a very unfavorable context. By contrast, in Laborde, the number of houses increased by 70% between 1826 and 1872. For the period 1773–1872, the number of houses in Laborde increased even more, by 140%. Indeed, families in Marsac—but more importantly in Laborde, accepted and helped their younger children to establish themselves, providing them with land and payment for their legal portion of the inheritance (la le´gitime), sharing parents’ dowries, and other advantages of this kind. Such practices were not peculiar to Laborde or Marsac, however. Traditional single inheritance customs had waned toward the end of the 18th century throughout the Pyrenean region. Indeed, jurists have asserted that the reason why younger sons and daughters were able to settle in Lavedan was because, by then, customs were no longer strictly observed. In Laborde, some private use of collective properties was tolerated when usurpers were native poor younger siblings. A few richer families took advantage of the community’s weaker control over these spaces and declining collective cohesion, and occupied some of them. In addition, not all families allowed their younger sons to marry younger daughters and reside in the village. Richer families could benefit greatly from the situation, providing dowries to younger children, arranging suitable customary marriages for them in the region, or sending them off to town or abroad where they might prosper. In the 18th century, coffee cultivation in Saint-Domingue had provided good positions to upper-class and middle-class younger sons of Bearn and Bigorre. For other families, especially those who no longer solely lived off farming, craft apprenticeship provided younger sons a good livelihood. The number of marriages grew between men and women who came from families involved in craft occupations. Although in the past twenty years some researchers have focused on the stem family, new studies on household structures are needed to indicate the number of single people who were not included in enlarged or nuclear families. In 1872, the mean household size in Marsac was about 3.3 people while in Laborde it was 4.3. In addition, the proportion of nuclear families (60% of the households) as well as enlarged families (25% of the households) was almost the same in the two villages (see Table 3). Comparatively, more people lived alone in the lowlands than in the hills of the Baronnies highland. Indeed, in Marsac, one person lived alone for every 22 inhabitants. There, men and women were twice as Table 3 Types of families in Marsac and Laborde (1872) Marsac Laborde

Nuclear families

Enlarged families

60.3% 62.3%

23.3% 25.4%

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Table 4 Mean age at first marriage in Marsac 1800–1835 1836–1896

Men

Women

27.9 32.2

25.8 26.3

likely to live alone as they were in Laborde, where the ratio was one solitary for every 60 people, and families were larger. Usually single persons were either women who had earlier cared for their aging parents or widows whose offspring had migrated and who had no one to live with in the village. In Laborde, six persons lived alone: one widow, four spinsters, and one childless widower who had remarried but was deserted by his second wife. Spinsters were not very old. They had remained in the village to care for their elderly parents. Although they had no children of their own, they might still own a house, and live off their garden and a few animals. Aging people were sometimes taken cared of by nephews or more commonly by nieces living in the village. One might argue that family size affected behavior toward solitary people. That would explain why in Laborde household size was larger, and single people enjoyed more favorable conditions. However, these figures are drawn from the 1872 census. In the early years of the Third Republic, they do not account for fertility or the number of surviving children in each family. Family behavior in the lowlands, despite massive migrations and the growing number of solitary people, showed weaker family cohesion and care as a result of more competitive and authoritarian relationships.

6. Marriage strategies in the presence of and under the authority of a paterfamilias All observers have recognized the preeminence of paternal authority, which the Civil Code later legalized. It grew out of the material dependence that ancient succession practices imposed. As a result of the high number of unmarried children residing in the family house and especially because of late marriage, fathers delayed succession and by the same token, their sons’ adolescence was prolonged.12 In Marsac, the age at first marriage was late compared to the rest of France, and it increased during the last two-thirds of the century. Table 4 clearly shows that young people (heirs and non-heirs) had difficulties with marriage. Furthermore, when age is considered in relation to inheritance, we find different results for customary and non-customary marriages (see Table 5). When non-inheriting younger sons married non-inheriting younger daughters (in non-customary marriages), these sons were the youngest males of all at the time of marriage. The non-inheriting younger daughters they married, however, were older than brides in all other categories. Generally, these non-customary couples did not remain in the village, but left right after the wedding. As mentioned earlier (Bonnain, 1996), in Marsac the eldest son (the heir) was the one who went away to work as a servant or day worker and married only after he had saved enough to support a family. Non-inheriting younger sons did not have these constraints. Furthermore, non-inheriting younger daughters first had to increase their portion with some salaries and savings before settling down. Heiresses’ early marriages 12

The term btyrannical,Q used by a number of commentators to describe Pyrenean manners, illustrates fathers’ excessive authority and justifies observers’ negative opinion. The term might describe some types of social norm, but we cannot make such inferences in order not to risk anachronistic interpretation.

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Table 5 Mean age at first marriage in Marsac according to type of marriage and individual position in family succession

1800–1835 1836–1896

Customary marriage

Customary marriage

Non customary marriage

Heir marrying a younger girl

Younger girl marrying an heir

Younger man marrying an heiress

Heiress marrying a younger man

Younger man marrying a younger woman

Younger woman marrying a younger man

28.1 32.5

24.7 25.6

27.7 32.3

24.3 25.4

28.1 29.6

26.1 28.1

were due to an unbalanced sex ratio due to the massive emigration of sons to South America. Propertied families were thus obliged to quickly accept young men from other villages as sons-in-law to secure the continuity of the house and restore its working power. Laborde experienced the same trend as Marsac: the age at first marriage also increased during the last two-thirds of the century. At that time, it was 31.3 years for men and 26.8 years for women, 3.5 years older than in other parts of France (see Table 6). What conclusions can we draw from the crossanalysis of age at first marriage in relation to individual brides’ and grooms’ inheritance position in their family? Among men in Laborde and Marsac, those who married the earliest were heirs, while those who married the latest were non-inheriting younger sons who married non-inheriting younger daughters (Fauve-Chamoux, 1994). This pattern shows that non-heirs had difficulty establishing themselves. Indeed, whether these younger sons married heiresses or younger daughters, they left home as seasonal or temporary migrants to earn the money needed to establish themselves. During the 19th century, settling up a household almost always immediately followed the marriage, be it in an existing house or elsewhere in the village. In earlier times, building a new house (or dividing the familial house) to allow several married siblings to cohabit in one way or another was not a customary practice. In fact, it was scrupulously avoided. Traditionally, the parents of the betrothed set the wedding date depending on kin members’ time availability (i.e. blood-kin or spiritual kin could be present). They avoided mourning periods and made sure they had a full larder. Even bprematureQ birth did not alter parental decisions. The wedding was then celebrated right after the baptism. Through the analysis of age at marriage, we may infer that the interval between the birth of the first child and the signing of the marriage contract (under the father’s full authority) was longer in the lowlands than in the highlands. During the period 1836–1896, the proportion of marriages between an heiress and a non-heir reached 17% in the lowlands and 14% in the highlands. In customary marriages of an heir or an heiress cohabiting with parents in the same house, the fathers’ authority lasted longer in the lowlands than in the highlands, particularly over the older children. Table 6 Mean age at first marriage in Laborde according to type of marriage and individual position in family succession

1836–1896

Customary marriage

Customary marriage

Non customary marriage

Heir marrying a younger woman

Younger woman marrying an heir

Younger man marrying an heiress

Heiress marrying a younger man

Younger man marrying a younger woman

Younger woman marrying a younger man

30.0

26.0

31.8

28.1

32.1

28.4

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Another indication of the father’s (paterfamilias) power in the house is clearly perceptible in the census of 1872. Instructions to census-takers were specific concerning the order in which people should be listed: bFirst, the head of the family, male or female, must be registered; then the wife of the head; then his children, if he had any; then ascendants—parents or relatives who were part of the family; and finally, servants.Q In compliance with these instructions, husbands were always considered as heads, even when they were younger than their wives and the latter were heiresses, or even when they cohabited with married sons or sons-in-law. It was not the same for widows who took over for their deceased husbands. They became heads of households while their children were too young to marry or when they had younger brothers. When sons get married, however, widows lost their position and their sons became heads of households succeeding their fathers. When succession benefited daughters (heiresses), their husbands (sons-in-law) became heads. Marriage gave them precedence over unmarried brothers, whatever the heiresses’ age, because, through marriage, they were identified as heads and successors. Among unmarried siblings, seniority prevailed. Census instructions not only reflected the standard patriarchal society of the 19th century, but also reproduced daily reality. Thus, in Laborde, household heads who were artisans lost their status when they became too old to work, thus distinguishing households involved in craft activities from those involved in agricultural activities. Thus, Laurent Larrey-Andreve, a 45-year-old stonecutter, preceded his 76-year-old father on the roll; Baptiste Delhom-Barou, a 42-year-old stonecutter, preceded his 67-year-old father; Jean Guchan, 42, preceded Jean-Marie Guchan, a 70-year-old weaver; and Pierre Colome`s-Pascau, a 29-year-old bricklayer and son-in-law preceded his wife’s father, who was 69. By contrast, in Marsac, there was no such loss of social position for ascendants, which corroborates our earlier argument on fathers holding authority over their sons longer in Marsac than in Laborde. Celibacy and migration, as well as their importance and impact, are other tools to estimate bpaterfamiliasQ power. Pyrenean celibacy was sometimes perceived as a regulator in the stem family system. In our opinion, it was not an obvious consequence of it. If celibacy grew in importance after the end of the 18th century, it was to serve as a possible solution (but not the only one) to regulate matrimonial exchanges under specific demographic and economic conditions (such as providing and rewarding work). It was accepted by the community and even honored by the church. However, we cannot deny the weight of paternal decisions in the choice of those who could marry in the house or in other houses, and in the partition of assets that permitted the creation of a new house. Fathers’ decisions were final in matters related to family economics. They handled transactions at market and fairs, and signed contracts as well as sale and purchasing agreements with the notary. They also decided on the division of labor within the farm. Girls took up housework and cared for young farm animals, while boys were responsible for cattle and agricultural and handicraft work. Let us look again at celibacy in the two villages for the entire 19th century. By reason of massive emigration to South America, the ratio of single adults who died at home was 12.9% in Marsac and 12.6% in Laborde. One might argue that family size explained the data: The larger the family, the more likely a solitary would exist. When comparing the number of unmarried children with the number of houses, however, similar results are found in both villages. In the absence of substitute activities (animalrearing, handicrafts), fathers in the lowlands kept their sons at home a little longer than those in the highlands; for their daughters, it was even clearer. Ever since 1836, daughters in Laborde left home more often than sons, primarily to seek employment and to find a husband. The proportion of spinsters was only 6.6% in Laborde compared to 11.6% in Marsac.

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Fathers’ authority not only consisted of securing their children employment and household roles but also of assuring that their decisions were followed in the long run. Customs allowed fathers to keep their children working at home, never giving them the opportunity to have their own lives. Theoretically, the selection of heirs was not left up to heads of houses in this part of the Pyrenees, because generally primogeniture was strictly observed. The heir’s upbringing in the family consisted of an apprenticeship. Everyone acknowledges the paradox of the Pyrenean heir who initially was expected to be a submissive and respectful son, at risk of being disinherited if he did not obey his parents’ will. Later–in fact, sometimes very late in life–he was to assume the responsibilities as head of the house and to demonstrate authority. In addition, the daily responsibilities of heads of houses were proportional to family size. Domestic units were more important and larger in the highlands than in the lowlands, however, and smaller in the Baronnies hills than in higher mountains and valleys. In agropastoral systems anyway, domestic pressure was stronger because the master of the house had to exercise his authority over members who occasionally lived in separated habitats, in the village or in the mountains. In the case of artisan families, cohabitation was probably easier because of the division of labor between fathers and sons. Both the enterprise and the well-being of the family depended upon proper management, productivity, and cohesion. Parental authority was justified (and more readily accepted) when there was no pressure for improving inherited property and when family memory and values were to be transmitted intact. What behavior do we observe in an open village such as Marsas, which was located near two urban centers, compared to Laborde? Among the unmarried men who stayed home throughout their lives, seven were firstborn. Half of those who left the village permanently were firstborn or first sons. Eldest sons’ failure to assume the headship did not necessarily extend throughout the century. While in the first half of the century, such failures signaled the overall weight of economic crisis, in the second half of the century, they suggested a bad fit socially between local realities, father–son relationships, and the centrifugal strength of the son’s peer group. Similarly, in Laborde, we observed the decline of the primogeniture system. Between 1836 and 1896, a little more than a quarter of emigrant men were firstborn or first sons from small houses. Gradually over the century, however, non-inheriting brothers (firstborn or younger) remained in the family house after their fathers’ death and did not leave until after the marriage of the heir. This clearly demonstrates solidarity between brothers in Laborde, perhaps due to the division of labor in the house. Yet it might also have been the result of mediation between fathers and children. Another indicator on the weight of paterfamilias power as a social standard was illegitimacy.13 In the highland Pyrenees, to the west of the Garonne River, communities considered it important to implement strict primogeniture. Heiresses held on to the possibility of heirship after bearing an illegitimate child, not acknowledged by the biological father. This was not the case in the lowlands or in the Baronnies hills, where illegitimacy occurred only when marriage was difficult or even impossible and concerned non-inheriting daughters who would receive a small dowry or none at all. It was also a safety valve to perpetuate single inheritance (Soulet, 1986). In Marsac, the proportion of illegitimate births during the 19th century was 3.4%, half the national average of 6.8%, according to the Institut National d’Etudes De´mographiques (INED). This percentage

13

Illegitimacy in the Pyrenees should not be confused with pregnancy before marriage because once the young couple had signed a marriage contract premarital relationships were tolerated.

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does not suggest that the situation was bbetterQ than in the rest of the de´partement of Hautes-Pyre´ne´es. On the contrary, it only suggests that girls often went to Vic-en-Bigorre or Tarbes to give birth. There they might abandon their babies at foundling hospitals, sometimes returning for them when their economic situation improved. It also suggests that unwed mothers’ parents considered illegitimacy as a major blow to conventional morality. In Laborde, the situation was quite different. The proportion of illegitimate births during the 19th century was 9.5%, and would be even higher if the young women were counted who went to neighboring villages to deliver their babies before returning home. Settlement by marriage in the highlands was as difficult as in the lowlands, but communities and families proved more flexible. Everyone knew everyone else. A young woman from Marsac might get pregnant after a sexual relationship with a passerby or an outsider whom she met at some social event. But a woman from Laborde generally had sexual intercourse with a man from the village: an impecunious younger son or an heir who left her for a girl with a better social standing and a larger dowry-useful in allowing one of his siblings to find a better partner. Although in Marsac and Laborde illegitimate births were listed on the civil registers as bchildren with unknown fathers,Q our fieldwork and oral inquiries have shown that in most cases, villagers knew exactly who the father was. What conclusion can we draw about the father’s power in the house in Marsac and in Laborde in the 19th century, especially considering gender? Though fathers’ authority lasted longer in the lowlands than in the Baronnies, it was not asserted in the same way over sons and daughters in the lowlands because daughters were submissive longer, sometimes throughout their entire lives. In Laborde, however, they left home earlier to seek their fortunes, hoping to increase their marital prospects. Young men from Laborde became independent sooner by taking jobs as seasonal migrants and peddling in distant lands. While in the lowlands, agricultural work and conditions were not propitious to teamwork among kin, conditions in the highlands required both authority in assigning duties and a certain solidarity among brothers.

7. Coresidence and solidarity In the case of medium-sized domestic units (mentioned earlier), a group of brothers could probably cohabit and learn to confront and control the brotherly competition that arose primarily between the firstborn and the younger cadets. In practice, the small number of rooms in the house required children of the same sex to share the same bed, closed by curtains to protect them against the cold.14 In our opinion, such proximity ought to attenuate conflicts considerably and establish some complicity without altering the hierarchy among siblings as they shared duties according to age, season, and locale—in the village or the mountain barns. More pressure was placed upon the children of the lowlands since they were under their fathers’ authority longer in Marsac. In the quasi-absence of collective property inside or outside the village, their collaboration was restrained compared to Laborde. They could not avoid the problems that arose from land scarcity, reduced division of labor, and limited responsibilities.

14

Buisan (1984) gave an example from the Bareges Valley of an old bachelor who had spent his life in a highland house or in the mountain barn. He and his brother shared one bed while two of his sisters shared another.

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Cohabitation among older brothers and sisters whose parents were both dead provides another good indicator of the domestic mentality. In 1872, 7 units of coresiding brothers consisted of 16 people in Marsac and 12 units of 30 people in Laborde. Although the proportion of households of this type was the same in the two places, more siblings lived together and shared everyday life in the highlands than in the lowlands. By contrast, the average age of male and female siblings living together in 1872 was different in the two villages: in Marsac, it was age 51 for men and 50.4 for women; in Laborde, it was 47.3 for men and 51.1 for women. In Laborde, where fathers died younger than in Marsac, the number of brothers co-residing in the same house was greater than the number of women in the same situation. Bonds among brothers in the Baronnies were stronger than in the lowlands. They were more likely to remain at home together in the family house where additional labor was welcomed. By contrast, women who remained at home were single mothers or widows whose children had left the village forever. Laborde, however, had six cases of an unmarried younger brother living in the same house as his married brother while their father was still alive. In all these cases, cohabitation depended on younger children’s age and family assistance. For example, observing two domestic units in Arribes (a district in Laborde), a younger brother’s presence in the household was due to his father’s and eldest brother’s occupation as stonecutters. In these cases, brothers remained at home with the heir to increase the family income rather than to look after their father. Were actually aging single kin in Laborde employed as subaltern servants, or were they needed at home to perform some hard tasks on the farm? First of all, we must examine some family genealogies. For instance, Jean-Bernard Delhom-Marcou was 2 years younger than his brother Franc¸ois, the household head and widowed father of six children. Jean-Bernard was single and lived in the family house with Franc¸ois’s youngest children, who were ages 23 and 21 in 1872. Franc¸ois’ eldest son had the same first name as his maternal grandfather, who had established the house. The second son had his father’s only brother as his godfather. All this was very traditional and does not necessarily indicate a close relationship. In this specific case, however, the two brothers were indeed close. JeanBernard, who declared he was a sabot-maker at the time of the military blotteryQ for army recruitment, got a bgoodQ number (which exempted him from military service) but, instead of leaving home to start a new life, he returned to the family house where his brother had married in 1842. The two brothers died within a few years of each other. Their father’s death before their majority had probably enhanced their mutual solidarity, more so because they were the only surviving offspring of the marriage between Marie Laspalles, the heiress of the house named bMarcouQ, and a well-to-do younger son of the house named bPeyrotQ, who was brought into the house as a son-in-law. The size and assets of the bMarcouQ property were more than sufficient to sustain the two brothers and Franc¸ois’s offspring. Similarly, it was not a sacrifice for the rentier, Prosper Duplan, the 47-year-old youngest son of the chemist, Jean-Pierre Duplan, to take care of his 82-year-old father with the help of a young niece and four servants. His father had welcomed him back after a youth spent in South America. Though the house system did not restrict the matrimonial market, a few bremarkableQ marriages appeared when we examine the marginal annotations in the Laborde civil registers. We observe several cases of brothers going away together and living in the same locality: to Toulouse, Paris, and even Napoleonville, Louisiana, where the four Gouaux-Cachette sons had settled. Sometimes parents left with their children to go to small nearby towns. All together this probably explains the disappearance of onetenth of the houses in Laborde over the course of the century.

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In the second half of the 19th century, the preservation of houses was no longer a priority for those who lived in them. They increasingly appeared to be refuges for kin who had difficulties establishing themselves elsewhere. At that time, the house was the exclusive protector of weaker family members. Charles Colome`s, the illegitimate son of a woman who had died soon after his birth, lived in his uncle’s house until the age of 30. Louis Sarrat, exempted from military service because of physical disability, remained in the home of his older sister. Therese Delhom cared for her niece, an only child, when there was only one male servant to help the head of the house, a joiner. In addition, those who could not confront the outside world because of physical and mental disabilities also remained in the family house. Undoubtedly, this was the reason why 50-year-old Joseph Crouau-Cazala, a second son, left Paris where he had married and worked in a restaurant. Back home, he took over the headship of the house after his father died and raised four younger siblings and two illegitimate nephews. Kin could always find temporary refuge in the family house, especially nieces, nephews, and legitimate and illegitimate grandchildren who were born elsewhere. This situation suggests the existence of strong family ties, which prevailed after departure from home. These ties had grown out of necessity or were the result of kin attachment, a common upbringing, and a shared history. Though family ties were strong in the highland hills, the situation was different in the lowlands where unmarried girls generally devoted their time to the care of surviving ascendants. There, the number of spinsters and single women was larger, and grandchildren and nephews never lived away from their parents (except for an 8-year-old illegitimate granddaughter in 1872, whose mother had married in another village 2 years after her birth). In Marsac, assistance given to indigent people was the responsibility of the community or of a neighbor, as in the case of Marguerite Courby, who resided with Adolphe Aventin in exchange for performing a few chores. Peer relations indeed weighed heavily on the decision to emigrate (Bonnain, 1996). One could then observe several brothers settling and living with their uncle, who was well established in Montevideo (Bonnain, 2000, p. 67). In the lowlands, however, where stem families traditionally existed and excluded non-heirs and where preference was given to residence and not to kinship, solidarity between siblings did not last long. When siblings left the village, they were quickly forgotten and when they left the country, they had disappeared without a trace by the second generation. Cooperation was therefore expected from neighbors living geographically nearer but being unrelated from a genealogical point of view. By contrast, in Laborde where reproduction was under control and where settlement was regulated by marriage, families counted on mutual assistance not only from neighbors but also from close relatives, which included second cousins but not more distant relatives.

8. Conclusion Collective property, whether it belonged to inhabitants of one village or of several villages, played an important role in the community when villagers all fought together to maintain their rights. Its significance was clear because it propelled economic activities, providing vital resources and extra spaces, as well as collaboration at the family level. The situation in the central Pyrenean hills was different from that in the lowlands, however. In the highland Baronnies, collective property was larger than private property and generally the oldest houses had impounded it. In the lowlands, collective

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property was almost nonexistent. Thus, the collective management of a territory affected both community attachment and relationships within the domestic group. In the specific context of the Baronnies region (altitude, improvement, distance from urban centers), relationships within the house were less competitive and more complementary than in the lowlands.

References Primary sources The abbreviation ADHP throughout the text, notes, and references refers to the collection of the Archives de´partementales des Hautes-Pyre´ne´es.

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