One married pair can easily cultivate two shares--at least in all provinces where the peasant allotments are not very large.

Now, if a family is composed of two married couples, one of the men can go elsewhere and earn money, whilst the other, with his wife and sister-in-law, can cultivate the two combined shares of land.

If, on the contrary a family consists merely of one pair with their children, the man must either remain at home--in which case he may have difficulty in finding work for the whole of his time--or he must leave home, and entrust the cultivation of his share of the land to his wife, whose time must be in great part devoted to domestic affairs.
In the time of serfage the proprietors clearly perceived these and similar advantages, and compelled their serfs to live together in large families.

No family could be broken up without the proprietor's consent, and this consent was not easily obtained unless the family had assumed quite abnormal proportions and was permanently disturbed by domestic dissension.

In the matrimonial affairs of the serfs, too, the majority of the proprietors systematically exercised a certain supervision, not necessarily from any paltry meddling spirit, but because their own material interests were thereby affected.