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Gender composition and household labour strategies in pre-Famine Ireland

2006; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 11; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/j.hisfam.2005.10.001

1873-5398

Jane Gray,

Historical Economic and Social Studies

Abstract This paper examines the relationship between gender composition and rural household strategies in Cavan, a county in north-central Ireland, during the first half of the 19th century. I show that the ratio of adult females to males was highest in small farm households that depended for their survival on intensively deployed family labour in agriculture, flax-cultivation and spinning. By contrast, households without land or with micro-holdings relied on the income from men's employment as agricultural labourers, supplemented by women's work as spinners. More substantial landholders employed men as agricultural labourers. In both of the latter categories household labour strategies centred on men's activities, with women's work representing an important supplement, whereas in the small-farm category household labour strategies centred on a strategic balance between men's and women's labour input. Amongst households engaged in linen weaving the ratio of women to men was lower across all landholding categories. Differences in gender composition resulted from a complex interplay amongst household labour and inheritance strategies in a changing socio-economic environment. Acknowledgements The data on which the analysis in this article is based were originally collected with the assistance of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation Women's Studies Programme, the Economic and Social Research Institute of Ireland, and an Indiana University South Bend Summer Faculty Fellowship. I would like to thank James Keenan for creating the maps, which were funded by an NUI Maynooth Library Publication Grant. Lexington Books generously gave permission to reproduce them. Notes 1 Women are more likely to have engaged occasionally in weaving than men are to have engaged in spinning. According to CitationCrawford (1991, p. 260) it is "probable" that women wove during busy times. CitationMcKernan (1995) has shown that efforts to encourage women to weave using the fly shuttle had some success in County Armagh in the context of male labour shortages during the Napoleonic wars. Nevertheless, the preponderance of evidence shows that Irish women did not engage in linen weaving to any significant extent until after the mechanization of spinning. 2 Strictly speaking, these records cover 16 civil parishes. However, in the 1821 census the parishes of Drung and Larah were enumerated as though they were one, probably because a small part of Larah is surrounded by Drung (see Fig. 2). 3 Some landlords were happy to facilitate subdivision in this way, because they believed that otherwise the rental value of their estates was accruing to farmer-middlemen, rather than themselves (see CitationCoote, 1802). 4 CitationCunningham (1960) concluded that the landholdings in the 1821 census manuscripts for the parish of Lavey were recorded in Cunningham acres. However, according to CitationO'Neill (1984, p. 91, Table 2.7), Irish acres were the standard measure in County Cavan. 5 This pattern is consistent with CitationO'Neill's (1984, pp. 171–177) analysis of child/woman ratios in the surviving 1841 census manuscripts for the parish of Killashandra, in County Cavan. He found that, after the first 3 years of marriage, farming women consistently had more children under age five living in their households than labouring women. 6 Here, "inmate" refers to a resident not identified either as kin of the head of household, or as a servant. It includes residents without any identifiable relationship to the household head. 7 In the parish of Kildrumsherdan in 1835, male servants earned between 4 and 6 pounds per year, and female servants between 2 and 4 pounds per year in addition to their board and lodging (CitationDay & McWilliams, 1998, p. 37). 8 However, in parts of the province of Ulster, including County Cavan, tenants benefited from the customary observation of 'tenant right,' which permitted them to sell their interest in their holdings to another tenant, and thereby to obtain a return from capital investment. 9 There were thus somewhat larger, on average, than the mid-sized landholdings in this study. 10 That is, about 6 Cunningham acres, or 5 Irish acres, assuming that the observation referred to statute acres. 11 The average age of heads of households who were weavers was 40.53, compared to 45.39 amongst farmers (95% C.I. 44.70–46.08) and 43.16 amongst labourers (95% C.I. 42.11–44.21). 12 The term 'cottier' has been used generally by Irish historians to refer to those cottier–labourers who obtained access to land in full or part exchange for labour, and to distinguish them from small tenant farmers and day labourers. CitationBeames (1975) noted that the term was used rather loosely amongst contemporaries. In some parts of the country 'cottier' referred to any smallholder, and in others simply to somebody who lived in a cabin, irrespective of the size of their holding or their occupation. Confusingly, Beames identifies Cavan as one of the places where the term 'cottier' was used in the latter sense, but it is clear from Coote's account that he was referring to the cottier–labourer system. 13 Young's estimates must be treated with some caution, since they did not include the labour costs of ploughing and sowing, and because few growers cultivated so much as an acre. Nonetheless, his estimates are of the same order as those CitationMendels (1981, pp. 134–135) provided for the cultivation of flax in Flanders. CitationYoung (1892, pp. 138–139) did speak to a weaver on the Ards peninsula in East Ulster who grew the more usual 'peck's sowing.' This man did not give a complete breakdown of labour costs by gender, but his account does imply a more even distribution of male and female labour, given that he had his flax rippled (which increased the male labour input), and brought it to a mill to be scutched (which decreased the female labour input). It is not entirely clear why Irish flax sowers rarely saved their seed, relying instead on imported flaxseed from North America. In the fine weaving districts around Belfast the flax stalks were pulled before the seed had ripened in order to produce fine fibres. Elsewhere, according to CitationGill (1925, p. 34), given the small scale of production in Ireland, and the ready availability of American flaxseed, it may not have been worth the growers' while to set some of the stalks aside to dry before processing them for spinning coarse yarn. At Waringstown, County Down, CitationYoung (1892, p. 132) was informed that "Very few save their seed; but this more than usual, owing to the import from America falling off." See also the discussion in CitationHood (2003). 14 At their mid-point, Drung and Larah are 11 km from Cootehill. Drumlumman is 19 km from Killashandra at its midpoint, although the satellite market towns of Arva and Ballynagh are nearer. However, these linen markets in the west of the county were less well established than those in the northeast, and so the processes associated with land subdivision had had less time to develop. 15 It should be noted, however, that Beatty also referred to the activities of Lord Farnham, a famously improving landlord, in establishing a school and in contributing to the cost of constructing farm buildings in parts of the parish. 16 The regional concentration of the linen industry around Belfast associated with the mechanization of spinning led to an increase in emigration from the western and southern counties of Ulster in the 1830s. See CitationCollins (1982, esp. p. 140) and CitationÓ'Gráda (1994, p. 76). 17 The latter could be determined by a whole range of factors, including the availability of wasteland, inattentive estate management, or the practice of holding land in common. Crawford , William H. 1991 . " Women in the domestic linen industry " . 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