the main characteristics of peasants and rural life

             

             Humanity comes together from the smallest unit. The smallest unit is called individual. Moreover, this individual can divide on two parts as a where they living which are living rural and living urban. In this article, we focus on the rural part. The rural part exists with peasant. We try to define the main characteristics of peasant and rural life with Berger’s and Delaney’s works.

             First of all, we should define the peasant. Basically, the peasant who has small

agricultural activities with simple equipment and labor exist with their families. They depend on the land and they continue live with their land. Having a basic status on the social organization. The peasantry everywhere can be defined as a class of survivors. It basic definition of the peasant.

             We already define the peasant so we can start with comparing the peasants and workers. The workers have alienation what they produce but the peasant can not have this issue because aware the surplus. Also, the aware the whole process and they knows how many they produce. Why they can not seek their rights. Because, the owner has power (armed, economic & political). If the peasants oppose their owners, they suddenly killed. So, they hide some of the crops. For this reason, we can define them as shrewd person. Also, they don’t have any political view because there is no class consciousness. So, they can not revolt to the owners but If there is great injustice, they rebel indirectly. There is a folk religion. It is not teleological or high status religion. The high status religion is mean that the owners look religious because they use the religion. In rural, there is a basic religion and lots of pagan rituals. These rituals should be happened because they think that If I don’t this, bad things can happen for me so I should do that. The idea totally like that. They do these activities because they survive. For example, celebrate the first tooth of the child because the child lived, before this child, many children are dead. The survive is can be key point for the peasant. These rituals can not recommend from the clerics, but the peasants keep going to do. It shows the guarantor life of peasants. Also, these rituals are performed more by elderly because when they are young, they don’t have any time and they have to work survive. Moreover, there is no specific time because they do same thing every day. They use the seasonal time. Their reference point is past because future is unclear and they don’t have any hope for the future. So, they can not act as a person, they replay their ancestors. They afraid of the new action because when they fail, they lose everything. They have short life span because there are no enough health conditions and when they don’t have enough life conditions or as much as they need food, they become a (kavruk) person who has not developed enough although they are older. For example, today’s parents have short size but their children more longer than them. Moreover, there is a family part. The only difference from slave is having a family. Time of the marriage, the only key point is person who can work. The peasants accept the sexuality as a norm. Also, when they become elderly, they want to marry their children because the house works continue. However, they can not care their children because they don’t have any time for this. Everyone can care children and the children have to learn social norms. If they don’t learn, they can be embarrassed by society. Also, when they act without norms, they are shamed again by society. Today, people have a virtue, they control their self as a person. In rural, the society control the persons.

           In conclusion, rural life has a weak, basic social rules. The peasants have to work for survive. There is a stable life and they need to make certain for everything.