Contenu du sommaire

Custom and Inheritance System in Ancient Franche-Comté. Custom and inheritance system in ancient Franche-Comté, from the 13th century forward, are related to the economic system — feudalism — which prevailed then in this region. The writing down of the custom in the middle of the 15th century is stamped with the contradictions resulting from the weakening of the nobility and the rise of the bourgeoisie. Thus the writing down of the custom will be used in order to reinforce the serfdom of the peasants — by the way of the mainmorte — at the very moment of the weakening of the feudality, while the customary inheritance system with its communal tendency will be bent according to the interest of the dominant classes : nobility first, bourgeoisie afterwards. These transformations of the inheritance system will rely upon kinship and conjugal community. The primacy of the male heir, and even of the eldest, will supersede that of the man over the woman, which previously meant primacy of the brothers over the sisters ; the primacy of the agnate will supersede that of the sibling ; and the conjugal community will be limited.

Societies, here and way out. This paper attempts to show a small rural society of the Pyrénées' piedmont, undergoing demographical and economical crisis, protects itself against the external, urban and national society; what it tries to keep under its control, how and to what extent it succeeds. The reasons why the two societies (local and external) oppose each other are to be found in the different finalities assigned to space: the peasants use it for production, the townsmen for enjoyment. Until now, a balance has been kept ; but for how long?

Play on Names. How People is Named in Minot. Through historical and sociological analysis of the way people is named (surnames, Christian names, nicknames) in a village of North Burgundy, and its relationship with the way places are called, it appears that toponymie and individual appellations belong to one and only system, and that spacial and nominal categories present a similarity. Both of the fields seem to have been arranged by the same organizing thought. Toponymy and patronymy constitute two languages reflecting one another. It exists a continuity between nominated space and denominated society. Beyond, it is all the problem of the relations between anthroponymic system and identity which is set here.

Masculine Space, Feminine Space: A Study of Sexual Differentiation. This study raises the possibility that within a given society, conceptions of the universe, as well as behavior may be sex-specific. It questions the ethnological practices of assuming male perceptions to be those of both men and women, and of (implicitly or explicitly) taking the masculine as normative. The sharp distinctions between the male and female conceptual worlds in one setting is illustrated through an analysis of space in a French peasant community. The association of each category of space in the community with one or the other sex group is described, followed by a discussion of how each group uses and situates itself in the various categories. Finally the reproduction of adult male and female use of space among boy and girl children is described.