ABSTRACT
The commonest domestic group in Pisticci is the nuclear family; at each marriage, ideally, a new household is set up. Increasingly, families are united only in consumption, and not in production. The members of peasant families may all work together, but this is considered degrading for various reasons. Of course, landless or insufficiently landed families have always had to work for a wage, usually on a casual day-to-day basis, and there was never any idea that these spouses and children should necessarily work together. Households are domestic groups, the members of which eat and sleep together, produce food or an income for common consumption, have a common reputation and, as often as not, are united by a concentration of affection, love and respect. Expanded households are usually those in which one parent of either spouse lives with the couple and their children.
