Abstract
The author investigates the frequency of peasant stepfamilies in Bohemia between 1650 and 1800 and how the legal framework and everyday practices related to the transmission of property shaped family relations. She argues that stepfamilies occurred twice as frequently among large peasant holders than among the landless rural population due to higher rates of remarriage and higher fertility rates among the upper strata of peasants.
The study demonstrates that as the remarriage of widows with small children was frequent, stepfathers living on the farm with an underage stepson selected as heir was common. Even though conflicts often developed between stepfathers managing the farm and heirs waiting to take over their inheritance, stepfathers and stepsons often continued to live together in the same household, with the grown-up stepson as head of the household.
Through the reconstruction of chain marriages, often between two widowed persons, the study demonstrates that very complex stepfamilies emerged with children living under one roof from three or even four marriages.