The Development Of The Family And Marriage In Europe

An original theory asserts that this distinctive form of kinship system developed in the northern Mediterranean around the fourth century A.D., and that its subsequent growth can be attributed to the efforts of the early Christian Church to acquire property formerly held by domestic groups.

This opening volume of a three-part history of the family in Europe examines the material conditions of family life, housing, diet and domestic organisation, and the economic and social factors that influenced its development.

A collection of essays by Michael Sheehan, whose work and interpretation on medieval property, marriage, family, sexuality, and law has insprired scholars for 40 years.

A study of the family's function in western society from 1200-1800, first published in 2003.

The second volume of this major work examines the repercussions of various aspects of the modern age – religious, political, economic and social – upon the institution of the family, and compares the model of the western family with that of other cultures. It includes studies on the family in early modern Europe, colonial societies in the Andes and Meso–America, modern China, Japan, Africa and Arabia. The final section examines the position of the family in western industrialized societies, from the Industrial Revolution to the present day, including studies on modern America, Scandinavia and France. Focusing on contemporary developments in the family, contributors examine, among other issues, the rise in the divorce rate, the decline in marriages, the increase in the number of one–parent families and single people in urban environments, the emergence of surrogate mothers and diverse techniques of artificial insemination; and it questions the survival of the family as a modern–day institution.

The family forms of historic Europe have been fascinating in their variety. Their importance for the historical development of our continent would be difficult to exaggerate; for our relationship with the peoples of the other continents of the world as well. This book is an attempt to recover the different familial systems and compare them with one another. The studies range from Russia, Poland, Hungary and Austria to Scandinavia, Flanders and Britain. All the influences which have affected the character and composition of European households are taken into account. The analysis covers their function as productive work groups, in the procreation and bringing up of children, and in the support of the elderly, and their relationship with the wider society and its norms along with its political organization, central and local. Claims that inheritance customs and inheritance practice and the occupation of the household head exerted a powerful influence on the size and composition of households are subjected to rigorous and systematic investigation.

Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject Sociology - Relationships and Family, grade: 2,0, University of Bamberg, course: Family in the life course, language: English, abstract: This paper is written for the seminar “Family Sociology”. The theme of “Family History” I chose, covers the main topics of marriage patterns and a comparison of family and childhood issues of the past, to those of the present. In this work I will point out the historical changes and regional differences on that what is called a “family”: First up I will shortly illustrate the development of the European pattern from Greco-Roman times until now, and I will introduce the main marriage patterns which are spread worldwide, namely the European pattern, the Eastern European pattern and the Non-European pattern. Then I will show how the meaning of family has changed. Not only is the structure another one compared to former times, but also has something new been created: a period called “childhood” which is different from the rest of the life course, regarding children no longer as smaller adults, but as something special. The developments on family history go hand in hand to changes of society like the industrialization or the creation of a welfare state. Since normative standards declined marriage is just one possibility to live together, still the most common, but steadily loosing importance. Meanwhile divorce rates have been increasing since the end of the nineteenth century and contraceptive measures have been introduced. So obviously this, what is called a family is more flexible than ever, creating the so called “patchwork-family”, which may consist of one single parent and children, two spouses with children they have from a former relationship with another person, or even a homosexual couple with children. Nowadays there is a new tolerance for what is called a “family”. Usually talking about “family” today means referring to the “nuclear family”. According to Berger (2002, 6) the nuclear family consisting of a married couple and a child (or children), was taken for granted in all societies of the West for the central institution of modern life, held to be superior to any other family form long into the early decades of the twentieth century.