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Yugoslavia The Family
Despite the massive changes of the socialist era, society in
Yugoslavia remained oriented around family and kin. Rights and
duties were defined by family relationships much more rigorously
than in contemporary Western societies. For example, the 1962
Basic Law on Relations between Parents and Children defined the
material support legally due one's parents, children, siblings,
grandparents, and other relatives. The law obliged citizens to
support needy or incapacitated relatives and specified the order
in which aid and assistance should come from both lineal and
collateral relatives.
The zadruga, a kin-based corporate group holding
property in common, was the traditional basis of rural social
organization throughout the Balkans. From the feudal era onward,
customary and formal law enshrined the rights and obligations of
zadruga members. Throughout rural Croatia, Serbia,
Montenegro, Hercegovina, Macedonia, Kosovo, and much of Bosnia,
the zadruga persisted as a formally constituted kin group
until well after World War II. Its most common form was a group
of patrilineally related males, along with their spouses and
children. Members of a zadruga generally owned and farmed
land in common.
The zadruga survived because membership in a corporate
group conferred clear advantages on the individual peasant
family. For the Balkan peasantry, the zadruga made it
possible to endure wars and foreign rule, exploitation of new
lands, conversion from pastoralism to agriculture, and seasonal
off-farm employment. Precise configuration of the kin group
varied during the past five centuries, in response to regional
changes in political, economic, and geographic conditions. The
zadruga maintained cultural integrity during centuries of
foreign domination, and it protected the peasant against the
predations of state and bandit. Religious practices centered on
the individual zadruga and not on the parish church. Even
among Muslim Slavs, each zadruga had a patron saint; the
saint's day celebration, the slava, remained the high
point of the calendar for many families late in the twentieth
century.
Large multifamily households enjoyed significant advantages,
especially in rural areas, well into the twentieth century. A
substantial adult labor force permitted family members to
specialize and engage in a variety of subsidiary operations to
supplement agricultural income. The burden of agricultural labor
could be spread at peak seasons, men were freed to engage in
politics, and women had time for handicrafts. An extended
family's wealth almost always exceeded that of two to three
nuclear households of comparable size. The zadruga also
provided a refuge for the orphaned, the widowed, the infirm, and
the elderly.
The composition of the extended family changed with the
increasing life expectancy realized in the twentieth century. The
number of generations in a given household rose from two to three
or even four, while the number of collateral relatives--brothers,
cousins, second cousins--decreased. Patriarchal authority, often
overbearing within the traditional zadruga, grew more so
as the life expectancy of the parents increased. The wars of the
twentieth century and migration away from rural areas after World
War II caused a decline in joint ownership of property by
extended families.
Under communist rule, the extended family became a
cooperative rather than a formally corporate kin group; but
family loyalty and a general feeling of responsibility toward kin
persisted. Individuals relied on relatives for mutual aid and
support in a wide variety of social and economic contexts. Family
solidarity eased the shock of urbanization and industrialization
throughout the 1960s and 1970s; relatives provided urban housing
for students from the countryside and employment advice and
assistance for the recent rural migrant. Migrants to the city
maintained ties with their kin in the country, periodically
helping with agricultural or construction tasks. Among the
country's technical and managerial elite, kinship strengthened
the relationship between commune and enterprise and reinforced
local and familial loyalties.
Nominal kinship in the form of godparenthood, or
kumstvo, cut across the familial focus of South Slavic
social relations. Kumstvo and marriage were the two
institutions by which the zadruga formed ties with other
kin groups. Traditionally, the godparent-godchild relationship
formed a permanent link, inherited patrilineally, between two
zadruge. Although kumstvo observance was less
elaborate among Muslim Slavs, they did observe rituals such as
the cutting of a child's umbilical cord and the first hair
cutting. The relationship implied few specific obligations
between the zadruge besides a general expectation of
friendship and assistance.
With urbanization, the number of large and extended families
declined. From the 1948 through the 1981 census, average family
size dropped from 4.37 to 3.67 members. The decline was steepest
in the developed regions. In Kosovo, approximately three-quarters
of all households had five or more members in the early 1970s,
and over a quarter had ten or more members. As late as 1953,
about one-third of all Yugoslav households were classified as
extended families. The percentage of extended families dropped
precipitously by the early 1970s. Smaller domestic groups
appeared to be more advantageous in an urban setting; in both
developed and less-developed regions, only about one-fourth of
all urban households were extended families.
Data as of December 1990
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