The prospect of spending long years in reasonable health and scarcely impaired activity, far beyond the convenient landmark of retirement, has already become the norm—without anybody really noticing i
This is an extremely important collection of essays in historical social structure. The volume represents the first attempt to examine in historical and comparative terms the general belief that in the past all families were larger than they are today; that the nuclear family of man, wife and children living alone is particularly characteristic of the present time and came into being with the arrival of industry.
This is a book about the history of family life in several senses. The author puts forward a thesis about the European family in relation to the conspicuous differences between European economic and social development and that of the rest of the world. He discusses the numbers and functions of servants, the numbers and situation of orphans and the aged, and the difficult question of whether American slaves lived in families at all. There is an extended analysis of the extraordinary turnover in population in England and in Europe in pre-industrial times, and a full discussion of the figures for English illegitimacy since Shakespeare's day. There is also a consideration of the elusive topic of the age of sexual maturity and its variations over time. The book represents some of the results of the first fifteen years of work in the newly instituted subject of historical sociology with particular reference to the family.
Robert Filmer's prime assumption is that the Bible contains the entire truth about the nature of the world and the nature of society. Along with details of recorded history from the beginning to the d
Thanks to improved food, medicine, and living conditions, the average age of the population is increasing throughout the modern industrialized world. Yet, despite the recent upsurge of scholarly inter
