The Household
eBook - ePub

The Household

Informal Order around the Hearth

  1. 272 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

The Household

Informal Order around the Hearth

About this book

Some people dwell alone, many in family-based households, and an adventuresome few in communes. The Household is the first book to systematically lay bare the internal dynamics of these and other home arrangements. Legal underpinnings, social considerations, and economic constraints all influence how household participants select their homemates and govern their interactions around the hearth. Robert Ellickson applies transaction cost economics, sociological theory, and legal analysis to explore issues such as the sharing of household output, the control of domestic misconduct, and the ownership of dwelling units.


Drawing on a broad range of historical and statistical sources, Ellickson contrasts family-based households with the more complex arrangements in medieval English castles, Israeli kibbutzim, and contemporary cohousing communities. He shows that most individuals, when structuring their home relationships, pursue a strategy of consorting with intimates. This, he asserts, facilitates informal coordination and tends ultimately to enhance the quality of domestic interactions. He challenges utopian critics who seek to enlarge the scale of the household and legal advocates who urge household members to rely more on written contracts and lawsuits. Ellickson argues that these commentators fail to appreciate the great advantages in the home setting of informally associating with a handful of trusted intimates.



The Household is a must-read for sociologists, economists, lawyers, and anyone interested in the fundamentals of domestic life.

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Yes, you can access The Household by Robert C. Ellickson in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Social Sciences & Family Law. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover Page
  2. Title Page
  3. Dedication Page
  4. Contents
  5. Preface
  6. Chapter 1 - How Households Differ From Families
  7. Chapter 2 - Household Formation and Dissolution in a Liberal Society
  8. Chapter 3 - The Predominant Strategy: Consorting with Intimates
  9. Chapter 4 - A Historical Overview of Household Forms
  10. Chapter 5 - Are the Household Forms That Endure Necessarily Best?
  11. Chapter 6 - Choosing Which of a Household's Participants Should Serve as Its Owners
  12. Chapter 7 - The Mixed Blessings of Joining with Others
  13. Chapter 8 - Order Without Law in an Ongoing Household
  14. Chapter 9 - The Challenge of Unpacking the Household
  15. Appendix A - Data on Intentional Communities
  16. Appendix B - Data on Co-housing Communities
  17. Notes
  18. Works Cited
  19. Index
  20. Copyright Page