ABSTRACT
Traditional family ties have become less necessary with the advent of earned income outside the household as opposed to cooperative work on the farm, and with the replacement of family solidarity through a comprehensive social insurance system. The greater economic independence of parents from their children has also been the result of social insurance. Weber presupposes that the ties between parents and children primarily owe their staying power to the common household. Family traditions are transmitted through the handing down of parents' names to their children. Insofar as the names of grandparents and parents are passed down to children—or not—names can be expressive of the parent-child relationship as well as that with other relatives. In 1890, 23.5 percent of children bore parental names, in 1994 it was 3.5 percent. This decrease in the importance of family traditions first manifested itself in the 1950s.
