˜Theœ family in the Western World from the Black Death to the Industrial Age

During the last few decades the study of the family has flourished, and in the process many myths about what life was like two or three centuries ago have been debunked. For example, contrary to popular belief, we now know that most women in the preindustrial West did not marry before they were twenty-five. Most households consisted of no more than four or five people, usually including unrelated young people working as servants. And perhaps most surprising of all, multigenerational households were not very common. Pulling together much fascinating information about the family in the preindustrial Western world, Beatrice Gottlieb presents every aspect of this rich subject with clarity and fairness. Her generously illustrated book deals with the households of the wealthy and the poor, courtship and marriage, the care and training of children, and the bonds (and strains) of kinship. The matter of inheritance receives special attention, as it played a substantial role in a world permeated by rank and status, and its importance gave the family a peculiar social and economic significance. With a focus on the ordinary people whose everyday lives strike a responsive chord in all of us, as well as brief appearances by famous people and important events in history--Henry VIII's divorce, Benjamin Franklin's apprenticeship to his brother, and Mary Wollstonecraft's death in childbirth--this remarkable, eminently readable work brings to vivid life the wives and husbands, servants and masters, children and parents of a not too distant past.

Although the history of the family was long ignored by serious scholars, research has flourished in recent decades, and this new field of study has told us much more than we knew even thirty years ago. In the process, many myths about what life was like two or three centuries ago have been debunked. For example, contrary to popular belief, we now know that most women in the preindustrial West did not marry before they were twenty-five. Most households consisted of no more than four or five people, usually including unrelated young people working as servants. And perhaps most surprising of all, multi-generational households were not very common.
This timely synthesis of a vast and complex literature makes accessible to general readers the story of the family in the preindustrial Western world. Pulling together much fascinating information, Beatrice Gottlieb presents every aspect of a rich subject with clarity and fairness. Her generously illustrated book deals with the households of the wealthy and the poor, courtship and marriage, the care and training of children, and the bonds (and strains) of kinship. The matter of inheritance receives special attention, as it played a substantial role in a world permeated by rank and status, and its importance gave the family a peculiar social and economic significance.
The book also deals with ideas about the family and the values it embodied. As Gottlieb says, What you and I usually mean when we say 'family' is something that comes to us from the nineteenth century, not from time immemorial. She makes the point that the so-called traditional world before the Industrial Revolution was awash in traditions that collided with each other. Marriage, for example, appeared to many as natural and inevitable, to others as burdensome and repellant. And while both medical and religious authorities always strongly advised mothers to nurse their children, upper-class women almost never did, instead using lower-class wet nurses.
The famous people and events of history make brief walk-on appearances in this book: Henry VIII's divorce, Louis XIV's mistresses, Benjamin Franklin's apprenticeship to his brother, Mary Wollstonecraft's death in childbirth. But the author's emphasis is on the more ordinary people, whose everyday lives strike a responsive chord in all of us. This remarkable, eminently readable work brings to vivid life the wives and husbands, servants and masters, children and parents of a not too distant past.

Library Journal

Gottlieb argues that the modern conception of the family (mom, dad, and the kids) stems from the 19th century when industrialization drove people out of rural areas and into cities. Before that, from the time of the Black Death until the end of the 18th century, families had many different forms. She also argues that we are once again seeing the emergence of new kinds of families, e.g., households headed by gay couples, single-mothers, etc. Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

CONTENTS......Page 10 I: A Place and a Social Institution......Page 12 1. The Members of the Household......Page 14 2. Life in the Household......Page 35 II: Men and Women in a Special Relationship......Page 58 3. Preliminaries to Marriage......Page 60 4. Weddings......Page 79 5. The Married Couple......Page 116 III: Procreation and Education......Page 138 6. Conception and Birth......Page 140 7. Early Childhood......Page 159 8. Upbringing......Page 179 IV: Relatives Past, Present, and Future......Page 204 9. Kinship......Page 206 10. The Linking of Generations......Page 242 V: Ideas and Ideals......Page 270 11. The Political Role of the Family......Page 272 12. The Emotional Role of the Family......Page 289 Epilogue: Toward the Twenty-first Century......Page 310 NOTES......Page 314 BIBLIOGRAPHY......Page 326 ILLUSTRATION CREDITS......Page 336 A......Page 340 C......Page 341 D......Page 342 F......Page 343 I......Page 344 L......Page 345 M......Page 346 P......Page 347 R......Page 348 T......Page 349 Z......Page 350 A well researched and readable study of the family in the Western world. A storehouse of fascinating information presented in such a way as to be of great interest to scholar and layperson alike. Gottlieb has distilled an immense body of research into an eminently readable and intriguing narrative.