Three Phase Models of the English Family - Coursework Example

BRITISH SOCIETY BETWEEN 1500 TO 1800 A.D. Looking into the pages of the history of globe, it comes to know that almost all human societies from ancient times to this day have been socially stratified. People have always been divided into different groups and strata. This stratification is based on class, caste, creed, cult, community, gender, age, tribe, region, religion, financial resources and education. Though stratification is a universal phenomenon, yet it varies from culture to culture. In the words of Tumin: According to historical and archaeological records, stratification was present even in the small wandering bands that characterised society in the earliest days of man. In such primitive conditions, both age and sex in combination with physical strength, must have been important criteria of stratification. “Women and children last” was probably the dominant rule of order. (Tumin, 1978:16) Social stratification is always the result of social change. These social variations are introduced by the revolutionary measures including natural calamities, agricultural and industrial revolutions, war between the countries, assimilation, acculturation, technical advancement and inventions. Industrial Revolution is one of the most significant indicators of socio-economic changes taking place in the past as well as in contemporary world. Zaidi writes in his book The Industrial Revolution 1750 as below: Since the overwhelming majority had occupied agriculture as their source of living for centuries, the agricultural revolution did not mould their everyday life as much as the industrial revolution; the later revealed new horizons of opportunity for both the royals and peasantry alike. (Zaidi, 2001: 19). The Industrial Revolution of 1750 not only brought about marvellous changes in the economic and political structure of England and paved the way towards financial boom, but also it modified the whole scenario of the life style of the masses from urban to rural areas of the country. Economically prosperous England observed drastic variation in domestic and cultural traditions from the privileged classes to the lower ones. The social values got gruesome decline, and the relationship between the members of one family experienced the turbulent shock weakening the very foundations of the patriarchal family set up. Fukuyama observes grave concerns about these changes in family life and views them as a threat to the community life. In his words: The changes that have occurred in family life are seen as a threat to the quality of community life. Concern is raised about declining marriage and fertility rates, increased rates of de facto marriage, divorce and lone-parent families, and increased rates of female workforce participation. It is argued that these changes in family life have weakened family bonds and the quality of relationships within families. This in turn is thought to threaten community (Fukuyama 1996: quoted in The Age, 2001). The society of Early Modern age consisted of three classes i.e. nobility, bourgeoisie and peasantry. Nobility was the privileged stratum, while bourgeoisie belonged to the merchants and traders of the middle classes. The peasants made the lower class of society. Early modern era was a very fertile period in respect of education and learning, and for art and literature; art was for moral values, not for the sake of art and the code of puritan ethics was strictly followed. There was harmony in society and education was given priority for the children. Campbell states: The period saw the spread of the printing press and the development of a widespread print culture. This was in the form of government documents like circulars and tax notices, a massive republication of the classical texts for schooling and universities, books on manners, learned books, lives of saints, broadsheets, ballads, and folktales dealing with all manner of subjects from chivalric romances to stories about demons and devils. A gradual shift away from an exclusively oral culture to one that combined morality and literacy took place, and this produced changes in patterns of thought towards more formal structures. (Campbell, 2001) The family life before the Industrial Revolution is thought to be simple and contented with affluent affection and strong ties among the members of the family. There was patriarchal family system where the husband/father used to be the head and was considered the authority appointed by the will of the Heavens to look after his family. He was the responsible for providing food, clothes, shelter and protection to his family. Women and children, during that era, were subservient to him and seldom took independent decisions about their life as they revolt and demand freedom in modern world of today. Mothers were compassionate and caring to the children, and they contained special concerns regarding home and family. Thorn comments on Stone’s portrayal of the society of early modern times as following: Since Lawrence Stones The Family, Sex, and Marriage, 1500-1800, eighteenth-century family history has burgeoned as a field, with many of the assertions most closely associated with Stone--such as the claims that the long eighteenth century saw the advent of the companionate marriage, affective individualism, sentimental motherhood, and reverence for childhood--receiving corroboration and contestation alike. Recent decades have also seen a boom in treatments of the metaphoric comparison of familial to state governance.(Thorn, 1997:146). Lawrence Stone, in his book “The Family, Sex and Marriage in England between 1500 to 1800”, has indicated how the family bonds are in wane in the recent years. He is of the opinion that from the Reformation to the present day, English men and women have contrived to use, twist or defy the law in order to deal with marital breakdown. The unnecessary demand of so called liberty during the modern times surely has worst affects in our life. In his words: During the period 1500 - 1800 there were massive changes in world social and cultural systems, and the family unit as we recognize it today came into being. The emphasis on the individual, the right to personal freedoms and the desire for privacy developed during this period and were symptomatic of world-wide shifts in attitude that also affected religion and politics. (Stone, 1990). Elisabeth Carnell differs with Stone in latter’s views that the old English societies were more involved in family affairs and enjoyed more contentment. She, in her works, declares the early modern era as the period of man’s domination, where women had no place to exercise their own free will. Women of that time, according to her, lived under pressure and this was the case especially with the women of middle and lower classes. They had to confine to the boundary walls of their home and seldom took part in any type of economic or political activities. She states: Medieval European society was a world created by men for men. Men, albeit not all classes of men at all times, controlled the public sphere, and through property and economic rights also dominated the household. Men decided the fate of states, souls, markets, trade and in most cases, their offspring (particularly female) as well.    Not all women, however, experienced difficulty moving in these marginal spaces: women of nobility and elite classes enjoyed greater economic and social security. The women of common classes lived under the greatest pressure, for their lack of economic security translated into minimal social and personal power. In the late medieval and early modern era, late marriages were very popular among both men and women. There was a large number of people who never got married. The concept of second marriages in widows was not a taboo, and they entered into second marital knot after their husbands died. Extra marital sexual relations existed, but it was not a popular attitude especially in women folk. Such women were declared as adulterers and were looked down upon. Medieval marriage patterns represented a continuation of the Roman marriage type, which involved a large percentage of young (age 20 or younger) brides, older (at least 5 years beyond the age of the bride) bridegrooms and a high rate of remarriage after the death of a spouse. But in late medieval times, the norms took a great change and they gave up following the Roman patterns. (Elisbeth Carnell). Sexual assaults and rape were found in early modern times. Men often involved in rape assaults. Homosexuality was also found at that time, and women were reported to indulge in it, though percentage was low, and it could not be done openly. Marriage between the individuals of same sex was strictly prohibited in England of late Medieval times. Further, child nutrition was the obligation of mothers and the mothers were highly sacrificing and committed. The centre of their attraction was child-rearing and getting engaged in domestic affairs. It was the duty of fathers to financially support their children. Children aimed at learning art, literature, and the philosophy belonged to Greek and Latin philosophers. Before the advent of industrial revolution, children learnt poesy, logic, and mythology. Parents urged the children to seek knowledge of ancient history and literature, and the fathers took special interest in the nourishments and training of male children. (Zaidi, 2001: 61) Talking about matrimony was one of the most favourite topics among the young and the old. It can also be seen in the literature of that time that how those people had been keen in the love affairs and marriage. It can also be found in the plays of Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare, though Milton and Pope emphasized more often on religion and puritan ethics and morality. The Restoration Whigs and Tories, in Weil’s views, also had great love and taste in the topics like about marriage, inheritance, and the limits of authority, employing stories of disobedient children and tyrannical husbands to inform and reinforce their political arguments. In her linked case studies of political discourse during the Restoration, Rachel Weil dissects the rhetorical strategies, ideological divisions, and agreements between and among Whigs, Tories, and Jacobites when they asserted ideas about gender, marriage, and the family. Weils attention to the role of gender in political argument seeks to bring this rhetorical obsession with domesticity to the attention of both political and feminist historians. In addition, she engages broader issues of women and liberalism, and particularly the implications of political modernity on the status of women, by challenging two narrative frameworks that speak to the question of womens progress in the eighteenth century. The first narrative, posited by Lawrence Stone in The Family, Sex and Marriage, 1500–1800 (1977), asserts a whiggish story of women who, along with rest of English society, move steadily in the direction of greater equality and individual liberty, due in part to the Revolution of 1688 (Weil,1999: quoted in the American Historical Review) Family is the basic unit of society and man is born and dies in this social institution. All his basic desires including food, shelter and sex are fulfilled by living in the family. Its solidarity is necessary to maintain peace and harmony in society. The waning of the cordial bonds in family creates lot of discord and disorders. The fertility rate falls, and the ratio of illegitimate children is in continuous rise in the world of today. Glezer is of the opinion: The weakening of family life is thought in turn to lead to the breakdown of community. The assumption underlying this link is that strong families “strengthen” communities. While the mechanisms by which families strengthen communities are rarely articulated, families are seen as having an important role in the creation of social networks and as a conduit to broader forms of community engagement. Marriage and family formation are seen as important life transitions in this respect. Marriage embeds individuals within a network of extended family and friends, and child bearing and home ownership are associated with greater levels of neighbourhood attachment and involvement (Glezer 1997: 9). The modern technological advancement has created the concept of nuclear families in which each and every person is free and does not feel himself responsible to either parents or spouse or children. The free sex and decline of moral values are the most significant perils modern English men are undergoing. It is the need of the hour that some limitations and boundaries be determined to save the cultural and religious traditions and traits followed and observed by our ancestors so that immorality as well as declining domestic bonds be built up and strengthened once again as it was in the past. REFERENCES 1. Stone, Lawrence, 1990. Road To Divorce. Oxford University Press. 2. Fukuyama, F. (1996), Trust the Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity. Penguin, London. 3. Tumin, Melvin M. 1978. Social Stratification: The Forms and Functions of Inequality. Prentice hall. 4. Weil, Rachel. Political Passions: Gender, The Family and Political Argument in England, 1680–1714. (Politics, Culture and Society in Early Modern Britain.) New York: Manchester University Press; distributed by St. Martins, New York. 1999. Pp. ix, 262. 5. Thorn, Jennifer, 1997 "Book Review: The Politics of Motherhood: British Writing and Culture, 1680-1760, The Johns Hopkins University Press 6. Zaidi, Mujtaba Haider, 2001. The Industrial Revolution 1750, Mousa Publishers, Gujranwala. 7. Campbell, Dr Peter, 2001. Society & Culture in Early Modern Britain and Europe, 1500-1800 8. Carnell, Elisabeth, 1993 Widows as Marginal Women in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe. 9. Bashar, N. 1983.Rape in England between 1550 and 1700, in London Feminist History Group (ed), The sexual dynamics of history. London. 10. Glezer, H. 1997 “Cohabitation and marriage relationships in the 1990s”. Read More