ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses some general problems in household studies, at the same time and explores essential features of Malay household organisation. Households are apparently simple and straightforward social units, but pose some intricate problems to the analysis because as organisations they are also remarkably 'multi-purpose'. The resource argument has been developed in a somewhat different direction by Marxist anthropologists, who have been mainly interested in the historical process through which the household has passed from being a productive and reproductive unit, to becoming reproductive only. The Marxist perspective represents a shift in focus, and introduces the concept of reproduction. Fieldwork was carried out in a cluster of villages in the central and most densely populated part of Kelantan. In 1965 these villages were communities of small cultivators, where cultivation was often supplemented with other activities, mostly part-time, but where access to land was the basis for security, and hence an ultimate goal for economic strategies.
