History of the family
1800s: Martineau · Tocqueville · Marx · Spencer · Le Bon · Ward · Pareto · Tönnies · Veblen · Simmel · Durkheim · Addams · Mead · Weber · Du Bois · Mannheim · Elias The history of the family is a branch of social history that concerns the sociocultural evolution of kinship groups from prehistoric to modern times.
A co-residential group that makes up a household may share general survival-goals and a residence, but may not fulfill the varied and sometimes ambiguous requirements for the definition of a family.
The authors, Louise A. Tilly and Joan W. Scott, broke new ground with their broad interpretive framework and emphasis on the variable factors shaping women's place in the family and economy in France and England.
[11] American anthropologist, Lewis H. Morgan, published Ancient Society in 1877, based on his theory of the three stages of human progress, from savagery through barbarism, to civilization.
[14] Engels' theory of resource control and later that of Karl Marx was used to explain the cause and effect of change in family structure and function.
[11] The book, Centuries of Childhood by Philippe Ariès, published in France in 1960, had a great influence on the revival of the field of family history studies.
Thomas and Florian Znaniecki, Polish Peasant in Europe and America (1918), was influential in establishing the precedence of systematic longitudinal data analysis.
[11] Gathering church files, court records, letters, architectural and archeological evidence, art and iconography, and food and material culture increased the objectivity and reproducibility of family reconstruction studies.
[17] Studies of current family systems additionally employ qualitative observations, interviews, focus groups, and quantitative surveys.
In biblical times, men sought to prove their descent from the family of the prophet Moses in order to be accepted into the priesthood.
[24] Children born outside of marriage, from common and legal concubinage, could not inherit the father's property or name; instead, they belong to the social group and family of their mothers'.
[25] Most ancient cultures like those of Assyria, Egypt, and China, kept records of successors in the ruling dynasties to legitimize their power as divine in origin.
[26] Many other cultures, such as the Inca of South America, the Kinte of Africa, and the Māori of New Zealand, did not have a written language and kept the history of their descent as an oral tradition.
The symbolic representation of the pole goes back to the history of their ancestors and the family identity, in addition to being tied with the spiritual world.
[33] Due to shorter life expectancy and high mortality rates in the pre-industrialized world, much of the structure of a family depended on the average age of the marriage of women.
[34] The pre-industrial family had many functions including food production, landholding, regulation of inheritance, reproduction, socialization and education of its members.
[35] Because of the industrial revolution and new work and living conditions, families changed, transferring to public institutions responsibility for food production and the education and welfare of its aging and sick members.
[38] Stone's conclusions have been disputed by other historians;[39] Peter Laslett and Alan MacFarlane believe the nuclear family became common in England beginning in the thirteenth century.
In particular, he discusses how technological advance has led to more married women working, a decline in fertility, an increase in the number of single households, social change, longer lifespans, and a rise in the fraction of life spent in retirement.
