The master-servant relationship was intended to last for a long time, normally one year (in Stockholm six months) and the period for giving notice of the intention not to prolong the contract was limited to two specified months.The parties’ duties were expected to be comprehensive, diffuse and open-ended.The servant was not permitted to serve more than one master at a time. He, or she - there were probably more female servants than males70 - was obliged to keep the chest, clothes and personal belongings in the master’s house, to be God-fearing, faithful, diligent, obedient, sober, and gentle, and not shirk the labour and duties, which were “reasonably prescribed by the master.” If the servant was disobedient, the master was entitled to rebuke him with serious admonitions or corporal correction, and if the worker ran away, the public authorities were to assist the master to get him back.The master was expected to give social protection, inter alia to clothe, feed, foster and to take care of his family members in case of illness.A servant who had served well and faithfully for one master from the age of thirty until his declining years should not be dismissed, but be taken care of until his death.71 The statutes on Servants and Hired Labourers were primarily framed for unskilled workers, in particular agriculture and domestic servants, who represented the most numerous groups of workers well into the middle of the 19th century. However actual working life as well as legislative statutes presented other types of agreements concerning manual work, which can roughly be divided into two categories. The first one concerned the so-called daylabourers (Sw. dagakarlar). Sometimes the formal requirements for establishing a masterservant relationship were not observed or the period agreed upon concerned other periods than the ones the statutes stipulated. c o n t i n u i t y a n d c o n t r ac t 45 70 Utterström1957, p. 37. 71 Kongl. Mayts Stadga och Påbud, omTienstefolck och Legohjon (The Statute 1664 on Hired Servants). Stockholm den 30Augusti År 1664. The exceptions - unskilled daylabourers and skilled craftsmen
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