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FAMILY HISTORY

Journal of Family History recent issues

The Informalization of the Parent-Child Relationship: An Investigation of Parenting Discourses Produced in Australia in the Inter-War Years

Drawing on the work of Norbert Elias, this article will explore the informalization of the parent-child relationship as reflected in parenting literature produced in Australia in the inter-war years. Authors of this literature have placed limits on the use of violence, discourage authoritarian disciplinary methods, and promote children's independence and autonomy. It is the contention of this article that these attempts to transform child-rearing practices can be interpreted as part of what Elias called the "civilizing process," by which a greater capacity for self-control is exacted on the part of both children and parents. It will also be argued that Elias's framework offers an alternative approach to Marxist and Foucaultian perspectives that place emphasis on social control.

 

The Influence of Modern City Life on Marriage in Ghent at the Turn of the Twentieth Century: Cultural Struggle and Social Differentiation in Demographic Behavior

At the turn of the twentieth century, Ghent became a modern industrial city. The new societal conditions undermined old behavioral patterns. In a process of cultural interaction based on strategies of distinction, disciplining, conformism, and trendsetting, the elite, the middle class, and the lower class adopted a new marriage pattern. Social differentiation, however, remained strong. First, strong group boundaries on the marriage market, between the lower class on one side and the middle class and the elite on the other, were complemented by intensified distinction strategies by the elite and the middle class, as is shown in both their selection of marriage witnesses and their use of French. Second, in all groups, a decline in the mean age at marriage and an increasing proportion of same-age marriages marked the rise of more egalitarian relationships and the increasing importance of marriage as a source of respectability. This development did not, however, reduce the clear differences among the social groups, with the elite and middle class showing a less egalitarian pattern.

 

"Children of Adversity": Disabilities and Child Welfare in Canada from the Nineteenth to the Twenty-First Century

The needs of particularly vulnerable children and youth have long tested Canadian parents and communities. Youngsters with mental and physical impairments have historically experienced a wide range of conditions that are always negotiated in the context of cultural assumptions, existing social supports and barriers, and available technologies. Both institutionalization and inadequate domestic substitutes have a long history, like birth families everywhere, of devastating youngsters beyond their original impairments. The construction of that predicament and its relationship to the use of institutions, fostering, and adoption in Canadian child welfare practices is the concern here. This article begins with a review of the commonplace evaluation of disabled youngsters in English-speaking Canada, next considers the vulnerability of families, and turns finally to institutional and domestic alternatives to birth family care. Although the story in each case is mixed, youngsters with disabilities remained vulnerable into the twenty-first century.

 

The Emotional Underpinnings of Male Fidelity in Imperial China

Although most studies of marital fidelity in imperial China have stressed the loyalty of wives to husbands, we should not ignore the complementary phenomenon of male fidelity. The affection and faithfulness of men toward their wives were repeatedly expressed as both ideal and norm. Various media conveyed messages of male fidelity, and each genre depicts men's behavior somewhat differently. Throughout time, rich traditions of discourse on the subject emerged, and discussions of male fidelity became increasingly subtle and sophisticated. Research on male fidelity provides fresh insights into the intimate emotional bonds underpinning Chinese family relations. This is an important subject of study, because it constitutes a subjective personal side to traditional Chinese ideas about marriage that allows us to get beyond public institutions and official ideology. In addition, the beliefs surrounding male fidelity provide useful background information for understanding some of the complex motivations underpinning female chastity.

 

Strangers in the Family: Work, Gender, and the Origins of Old Age Homes

Through an examination of nineteenth-century familial correspondence and the records of various Protestant charitable organizations in Quebec City and Montreal, this article explores the changing culture of family care during illness and old age. It posits a new interpretation for the foundation of asylums for women that emphasizes changing perceptions of the family, especially the attitudes regarding the care of servants within the household. Furthermore, it argues that the treatment of servants as both caregivers and those in need of medical care is an important yardstick by which to measure the waning of the patriarchal household and the emergence of more explicitly contractual relations between the classes.