Practice question · Multiple choice
Sociology distinguishes a household from a family. Why is this distinction crucial when interpreting historical parish records of domestic life?
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- Who else beside kin might live under one roof in a pre-industrial dwelling?
- Does sharing a physical residence always require a relationship of marriage or descent?
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C. Co-resident domestic groups often contained unrelated individuals
Why
Equating domestic coresidence with kinship distorts historical demography, as servants and lodgers formed households without sharing descent. Treating spatial separation as kin dissolution confuses residence with kinship networks.
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