Ryan Reeder
History 322
Prof. Blair Holmes
February 15, 2000
Coontz, Stephanie. "History of the Family" in Encyclopedia of Marriage and the Family Volume 1, Ed. David Levinson: Simon and Schuster Macmillan, New York, 352-9.
The meaning of family has varied over time, making it difficult to construct "'the' history of 'the' family." The development of the composition of the family in Western Europe included neolocalism, single nuclear family households, and relatively late marriages. Extended families living together were also fairly common. Tilly and Scott identified the family economy as having evolved from the household production of preindustrial societies to the wage-labor system to the consumer society of industrial cultures. Certain patterns of family life, such as increased independence of the nuclear unit, limitations on parental rights over children, and love-based marriages have evolved since the Industrial Revolution. However, these changes were not universal; often one type of family was dependent on the existence of another. In America, family types have included a Native American kinship system, the patterns of European colonial and propertied households, and the often disrupted slave system.
The concept of separate spheres for men and women emerged in the nineteenth century. Men were responsible for economic and political functions, while women engaged in child-rearing and moral teaching. As the pace of industrialization quickened, these roles became more rigid. The modern family came out of a variety of different sources. One result of this was a shift in emphasis from the mother-child to the couple relationship. The conflicts that began to emerge in the 1920s were suppressed during the exigencies of the Great Depression and World War II, but resurfaced in later generations. Further changes, such as increases in singles and divorcees have appeared in recent years. These changes are causing conflict today through reconciling the two-parent nuclear family with other nontraditional families.