Influence of socio-economic status and household structure on the availability of grandmother care. Possibilities of research into the grandmother hypothesis in the Central-European historical family

The aim of this study is to discuss the role of grandmothers in pre-modern society. It uses results of quantitative testing of the “Grandmother Hypothesis” based on data reconstructed on the Šťáhlavy estate in western Bohemia in 1708–1834 for a qualitative interpretation of this phenomenon. The first part of the paper focuses on the availability of grandmother care and evaluates various aspects of this term. The second issue under discussion is to what extent the potentiality of grandmother care was influenced by the structure of households, which in its turn is closely linked to the socio-economic status of a given family.