The realization that European family forms are failing to converge as predicted by modernization theory has led many scholars to suspect that the broad regional differences detected by historians persist in the present and are likely to influence future developments. This article outlines some relevant hypotheses prompted by historical studies about the role of family and kinship as sources of social security and analyses the results of comparative work on contemporary Europe, paying special attention to the relative weight of cultural and structural factors. Although differences still appear to predominate over commonalities, it is not inconceivable that in certain important respects European countries might paradoxically converge, owing to the generalized decline of the welfare state, towards forms of welfare provision that are closer to the ‘familialistic’ models of southern and eastern Europe than to the ‘modern’ models of Scandinavia and north-western Europe.

This micro-study examines the Maltese parish of St Mary's (Qrendi) in the second half of the eighteenth century. First it will be argued that – as in many other contemporaneous communities – migration to other parishes made its population extremely fluid. A second interest lies in the extent to which social distinctions and unruly behaviour further disrupted village solidarity. Finally there will be a consideration of the thesis that such unstable elements were counterbalanced by various integrative ties that bound the Qrendin together, such as charity, the obligations of neighbourliness and an intense devotion to the parish, kinship and godparenthood.