The buildings we lived in were one story high, the lofts used for storage. The walls were made of bricks and plastered over for insulation inside and out, then white-washed. Earthen—dirt—floor. The stable for the oxen was the most imposing building, reflecting with its high cathedral ceiling the economic importance of those animals.
The individual oxen certainly had more space for themselves than people did. Families, sometimes extended families of several generations, had about 200 square feet of kitchen space shared with another family, about the same for a pantry and a single room, about 20 x 20 feet, a total of about 800 square feet. In this living space marriages were consumated, and often in the presence of the whole family; children were conceived, born and raised while dying old grandparents struggled to catch a few more breaths.
I did not notice it then, and do not recall anybody complaining about it, but looking back, the incredible overcrowding is the most striking characteristic of that lifestyle. The living space was taken over by beds: they were all along the walls in the bedroom, and even in the kitchen. As for other furniture, I recall a cupboard here and there, and a table in the kitchen with some simple stools to sit on. Beds, beds all over the place. And still not enough beds: an average of two to each bed, two grown-ups, that is, and in addition children sleeping crosswise, by the foot. Unless married, males shared beds with other males and females with females, and as a rule all the males who worked with animals slept out in the stables on makeshift beds, probably because of the lack of space inside. But now that I think about it, this was also a form of birth control, reducing the chances of pregnancy somewhat.
Women emerge in my recollection as figures towering over their families. They not only ran the lives of their offspring, but pushed their husbands around as well. The dominant and domineering role played by women began at an early age. Rozika, the daughter of our neighbour, the head carter, who adopted me as her boyfriend at about the age of four, chose me. I did not choose her. She remained my constant companion, my steady girl, until I went away to boarding school when I was eleven. And the playmates of all the little boys, just like Rozika, fought off any competition fiercely and monopolised their males. Very soon there developed an alliance between my mother and Rozika, an unwritten pact: Rozika had the right and duty to protect and generally push me around since they both considered me to be the inept and fumbling male. The little girl also came to be adopted into my family, spending more time in our place than in her own.
Reflecting the dominant role played by the female in that society, a couple of explanations come to my mind: their servitude emasculated the males, who were used to being told every day in their lives what to do, when and how. Women were less exposed to the arbitrary will of the bosses, they were more on their own. And they were the ones who ruled over the household, because they were the ones who spent time there: the males only came to eat. And often not even that was the case, since the meals would be carried out to them when they worked in the fields.

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Sándor András Agócs
is Associate Professor Emeritus of History and Sociology at Wayne State University in Detroit. He is the author of The Troubled Origin of the Italian Catholic Labor Movement, 1878–1914 (Detroit: Wayne University Press, 1988).