Passing it on: The inheritance of summer houses and cultural identity

Abstract

As part of an ongoing study of extended kinship with a focus specifically on the non-fungible inherited property of a summer house, interviews were conducted with 60 respondents, second to fourth generation heirs to typically modest summer cottages in New England. While not all of Protestant stock, all come to embrace a cultural identity of inner-worldly asceticism as explicated in Weber’sProtestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, if they are to use the house at all. Such summer houses require disciplined work on the part of their heirs, both to maintain the property and to conserve it “for the glory of God” rather than capitalize on it by selling it off to developers. Sacralized by its heirs, the summer house becomes the focus of their ongoing relations with each other, across and between the generations. The study suggests that the perpetuation of the Protestant Ethic may not require an “iron cage”: instead, the sharing of material property contributes to warm relations among extended kin (currently ignored by sociological analysis of families) as well as to their collective and individual sense of cultural identity.