NO-FAMILY HOUSEHOLDS IN SARATOV PROVINCE AT THE END OF THE XIX CENTURY: THE DATA OF ZEMSTVO CENSUS REGISTERS

Abstract

One of the less common variants of a peasant household in an agrarian society was a structure that did not contain married couples. Their number in various provinces of the Russian Empire of the XIX century could range from 1 to 8%. Zemstvo’s censuses materials of the Saratov province of the late XIX century fix a smaller number of such households. However, at the same time they allow to evaluate their demographic and economic content. Most of the “no family” struc-tures belong to subgroup 2a (according to P. Laslett’s classification). In terms of age, these are either “young” households (the age of the head ranges from 14 to 20 years), or “old” (age of the head is from 50 and above). The former, as a rule, are headed by men and consist of orphaned children; the latter are female (widowed or unmarried sisters). It can be considered that no-family households were the result of extraordinary circumstances, with a short lifetime.

Fig. 1. Ref.: 18 titles.