Women's Entrepreneurship and the Dissolution of Zadruga in the 19th Century Slavonia
Women's Entrepreneurship and the Dissolution of Zadruga in the 19th Century Slavonia

Summary/Abstract: Following in the path of M. Gavazzi's interest in the South Slavic and Balkan zadruga families, the author focuses her discussion on the role of women's entrepreneurship in the process of zadruga dissolution. This women's role is inferred from demographic sources and from selected ethnographic accounts from 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. Women's individual property within Slavonian zadruga, and the manner in which it was managed, is contrasted with brotherly loyalty in managing the zadruga common patrimony. This micro-level, family process is related to several macro-level social processes: the 18th century colonization of Slavonia, a demographic explosion and subsequent efforts to limit it, and the development of peripheral agricultural markets in the 19th century. The author concludes that "women really did pull zadruga apart" , but in a sense much different from the interpretations of early ethnographies.

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