ABSTRACT
The form and function of the family household has been the slowest to be affected by the post-War changes examined in the previous chapters. Until the early 1960s, family life proceeded according to traditional norms with relatively little change, apart from the decline of trust placed in the ultimate safety and value of the farm and land. To increase the farm both to and beyond a size allowing self sufficiency have been primordial aims; the anti-peasant policies in the 1950s have rendered these aspirations uncertain at best. But the campaigns of collectivization did not as yet press for the integration of all farms, and up to the 1960s the peasant mode of life went on relatively unchanged, even enjoying modest, albeit brief revivals in 1953 and 1956 to 1958, when pressures on private farming were temporarily eased (chapter 4). The majority of villagers still worked in agriculture until 1960, and the fact that one or other member of a family went to work in industry had little effect on a village household. Non-agricultural labour at this time was not yet correlated with new skills and qualifications, still less to a career; its function, rather, was to enable the family to retain the farm, wages of family members in industry were very frequently put into the farm in times of greatest pressure on the peasantry, and afforded a minimum secure income when little was left from farm produce. Another function of non-agricultural employment was precautionary, to prepare for collectivization. Younger household members preferred not to be found in charge of farms when collectivization reached them, older people were left in charge of the farm, while the young provided the security of a wage. As expectations in relation to collectives were low, the fewer the family members recruited as collective members the better - it was thought. In these 204years therefore the household family in the village was still traditional; successive generations often lived together and there was continuity between the generations that is, the young were educated into the values and skills of farming life. The family remained organizer of activities, and the daily and weekly schedule of family members revolved around the land and its farming. Women's role had not as yet changed; their involvement in the labour market outside the farm and home was still a rarity and their functions as traditional gazdaasszony continued.
