Bäuerliches Heiratsverhalten und Stellenübertragung in den holsteinischen Elbmarschen

On the basis of a rural region with impartible property transfer in the context of an inheritance system that was founded on the principles of partible inheritance and preference of the youngest son, is shown how these contradictory aims were simultaneously pursued in practise. Though productive farmsteads rested intact on the one hand, descendants were not excluded from the possibility of marrying on the other hand, and this on the background of an economic dynamism of the farms that stands in contrast to the prevailing concept of a straitjacket bound by demography and economy in the "preindustrial mode of population". Instead of a "social sterilisation" there was a downward mobility until eventually the common family origins fell into oblivion, and a clear disassociation by class criteria set in. In the particular case the transfer of the farmstead depended on the actual economic situation, whilst the choice of partners was strongly determined by social and geographical patterns