Torsello, Davide - Pappová, Melinda: Social Networks in Movement. Time, interaction and interethnic spaces in Central Eastern Europe - Nostra Tempora 8. (Somorja-Dunaszerdahely, 2003)

Interethnic spaces

A village on the ethnic periphery 133

and development. The mass appearance of “strangers", be they Slovaks or Hungarians, can transform the community economically, culturally, socially and ethnically, for which the community is not prepared. We should also know the inheritance patterns among grandparents and parents, i.e. in what way inalienable property is inherited. Most children, when grown, live on their own, thus they are not in need of their parents’ (grandparents’) house. They may only need a building site or house for their children (the grandchildren), which is not a negligible fact, either.

On the other hand, it is a rather common custom that in the case of more than one heir the heirs prefer to sell the house or the building site in order to pay the siblings’ parts by dividing the obtained sum. This behaviour is often justified by the financial conditions of the family. In other words, in order to be able to pay the siblings from the heritage, the heirs prefer selling the house or the building site to taking the house into possession and then financially compensating the siblings.

Undoubtedly, market considerations play the most important role in this case. It means that in order to obtain the highest profit the family sells the house as quickly as possible with no regards for whom the purchaser should be. This is a comprehensible viewpoint, after all. The only question is in what way these behavioural patterns will influence the social life and the ethnic structure of the community.

Mixed marriages and birth-rate

The high proportion of inter-ethnically mixed marriages is another indicator of the advanced stage of natural assimilation in Dlhá nad Váhom. True, the proportion of “Hungarian” marriages (where both husband and wife are ethnic Hungarians) is still over 50%, but also the proportion of “Mixed” marriages surpasses 31% (see Table 7).

Experience shows that mixed marriages in the long-term do not bring about "healthy” and maybe desirable bilingualism or biculturalism; on the contrary they often result in the