Farm Servants, Family Formation the Rural Economy Flanders and France 1800–1860

Abstract

Tocqueville observed that among aristocratic societies servants formed a distinct class from that of their masters. The two classes are « superposed one above the other, always distinct... There is permanent inequality of conditions... There are hereditary families of servants, and the same families of servants adhere for several generations to the same families of masters (like two parallel lines, which neither meet nor separate). » In democratic societies, on the other hand, « at any moment a servant may become a master... The servant always considers himself the sojourner in the dwelling of his masters. »