The Family Business

Abstract

Historians studying the concept of family in sixteenth-century Muscovy have usually relied upon memorial donations as evidence and contrasted two-generation nuclear versus three-generation extended families. This study examines documentary evidence of relatives jointly engaged in primarily entrepreneurial transactions involving property. The concept of “family” in such evidence is only implicit. The data base contains 397 instances of “family partnerships” from members of 288 families. While every conceivable combination of family relationships occurs, what is most striking is the predominance of brothers as the sole family members involved in 162 cases, 40 % of the data base, or in combination with other relatives for an additional 114 instances totaling 276 records, or over 69 % of the data base. Moreover, one-generation family partnerships (just brothers 162, just cousins 8, brothers and cousins 17, just husband and wife 9) total 196 cases, nearly half the data base. The data confirm the important role of women in property relationships (women appear in 107 cases, over 25 % of the data base) and the relative unimportance of in-laws (who appear only 6 times). In practice, then, the Muscovite conception of family included previously unappreciated one-generation families, revealing that family relationships in Muscovy were even more fluid than has been previously supposed.