Gender aspects of inheritance strategies and land transmission in rural Scania, Sweden, 1720-1840

This study deals with gender aspects of land transmissions in pre-industrial Sweden. Although not supported by law, a clear mentality of male primogeniture among peasants existed in the Swedish countryside in the 18th century. In many cases, however, this ideal could never be realized, making the idea of the “family farm,” handed down from father to son for generations, more of a myth than a reality. This study uses postmortem inventories linked to tax registers and family reconstitutions for a sample of parishes in southern Sweden to show that various strategies were chosen when transferring the farm after the death of the husband or wife. Although sons were more likely to take over the farms, daughters (or more correctly sons-in-law) also frequently did so, as did, sometimes, more distant kin and non-kin. Moreover, it was not the case, as has sometimes been maintained, that daughters took over the farm only when no able-bodied sons were available. On the contrary, daughters (sons-in-law) quite frequently took over the farm even when sons were present. The decision on land transmission was part of a more general family strategy concerning reproduction (access to marriage and household formation) as well as old-age security.