ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the pattern of the family life cycle, the ways in which resources were redistributed between families and how they were utilised to maintain the family unit. The concept of the life cycle not only provides a vital contribution to the understanding of the connections of households and families to economic and social circumstances in the past, but it also furnishes a useful tool for examining the nature of family life, from formation to dissolution. Inheritance has assumed a central role in understanding the household economy because it presents a mechanism for the redistribution of resources between one generation and the next. Moving down the social scale, the limited ownership of even small quantities of land could be vital for the economics of the family. Thus the redistribution of resources, and especially land, was crucial to the continued viability of the family unit.
