Pierre Bourdieu was Formerly Professor of Sociology at the Collège de France and Director of Studies at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales.

"Absolutely fundamental to any understanding of the development of Bourdieu's thought ... as insightful as it is moving." Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute "Plunges us into fascinating details of the economics of dowries and animal husbandry."Steven Poole's non-fiction choice in The Guardian

• Epigraph. Introduction.Part I –Bachelorhood and the peasant condition.1. The system of matrimonial exchanges in traditional peasant society.2. Internal contradictions and anomy.3. The opposition between the bourg and the hameaux.4. The peasant and his body.Conclusion.Appendix I.Bibliographical notes.Thematic bibliography.Appendix II.Changes in population, 1836-1954.Appendix III.Dialogue between a villager and a peasant.Appendix IV.Another dialogue between a villager and a bachelor.Appendix V.The exemplary tale of a younger son from a modest family.Another younger son.Appendix VI.Excessive maternal authority and celibacy.Appendix VII.An attempt to generalize: bachelorhood in sixteen rural cantons in Brittany.Part II – Matrimonial strategies in the system of reproduction strategies.Bibliographical notes.Bibliography.Part III – Reproduction forbidden: The symbolic dimension of economic domination.1. Addenda and corrigenda.2. ‘From the closed world to the infinite universe’.3. The unification of the matrimonial market.4. ‘Sound opinions of the people’.Appendix.Postscript – A class as object.Index of concepts.Index of names