The Peasants of Marlhes: Economic Development and Family Organization in Nineteenth-Century France

Lehning finds that economic development in Marlhes did not destroy its peasantry. Rather, the peasants adjusted to the commercial forces of the industrial world by adapting traditional forms of behavior and attitudes toward the new conditions, not abandoning old ways and adopting unfamiliar ones. In fact, the peasant family was a remarkably flexible unit, adapting patterns of family behavior to the impact of industry, market agriculture, and heavy rural-urban migration.

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