7.

[669] Marie Trevelyan, _Folk-lore and Folk-stories of Wales_ (London,
1909), p. 28.

[670] "In earlier ages, and even so late as towards the middle of the
nineteenth century, the Servian village organisation and the Servian
agriculture had yet another distinguishing feature. The dangers from
wild beasts in old time, the want of security for life and property
during the Turkish rule, or rather misrule, the natural difficulties of
the agriculture, more especially the lack in agricultural labourers,
induced the Servian peasants not to leave the parental house but to
remain together on the family's property. In the same yard, within the
same fence, one could see around the ancestral house a number of wooden
huts which contained one or two rooms, and were used as sleeping places
for the sons, nephews and grandsons and their wives. Men and women of
three generations could be often seen living in that way together, and
working together the land which was considered as common property of the
whole family. This expanded family, remaining with all its branches
together, and, so to say, under the same roof, working together,
dividing the fruits of their joint labours together, this family and an
agricultural association in one, was called _Zadrooga_ (The
Association). This combination of family and agricultural association
has morally, economically, socially, and politically rendered very
important services to the Servians. The headman or chief (called
_Stareshina_) of such family association is generally the oldest male
member of the family. He is the administrator of the common property and
director of work. He is the executive chairman of the association.
Generally he does not give any order without having consulted all the
grown-up male members of the _Zadroega_" (Chedo Mijatovich, _Servia and
the Servians_, London, 1908, pp. 237 _sq._). As to the house-communities
of the South Slavs see further Og. M. Utiesenovic, _Die Hauskommunionen
der Suedslaven_ (Vienna, 1859); F. Demelic, _Le Droit Coutumier des
Slaves Meridionaux_ (Paris, 1876), pp. 23 _sqq._; F.S. Krauss, _Sitte
und Brauch der Suedslaven_ (Vienna, 1885), pp. 64 _sqq._ Since Servia,
freed from Turkish oppression, has become a well-regulated European
state, with laws borrowed from the codes of France and Germany, the old
house-communities have been rapidly disappearing (Chedo Mijatovich, _op.
cit._ p. 240).

[671] Chedo Mijatovich, _Servia and the Servians_ (Lond