ABSTRACT
The bourgeois family model was in any case less relevant to the small-enterprise household which was, in contrast to that of bourgeois, professionals, civil servants and white-collar employees alike, characterised by close links between the spheres of production and reproduction, between business space and private space. The large furnace he installed meant reducing to a mere 56 square metres the space available for kitchen, living room and bedrooms. The mixing of domestic and private space was even more common in retailing, where the family almost invariably lived above or at the side of the shop. In most shops, there was a continual movement between residential space and business space, especially for the women and children. Family commitment to the shop or workshop was built upon the couple, as the Auvergnat cafe-owner recognised. Women nevertheless remained essential to family businesses, as the officials who devised the British population censuses knew well.
