Lawrence Stone | 1977 | ISBN: 0060141425 | English | 464 pages | ePUB | 5 MB

Despite its dauntingly massive appearance, the subject of this book can be stated fairly simply. It is an attempt to chart and document, to analyse and explain, some massive shifts in world views and value systems that occurred in England over a period of some three hundred years, from 1500 to 180o. These vast and elusive cultural changes expressed themselves in changes in the ways members of the family related to each other, in terms of legal arrangements, structure, custom, power, affect and sex. The main stress is on how individuals thought about, treated and used each other, and how they regarded themselves in relation to God and to various levels of social organization, from the nuclear family to the state.

This book studies the evolution of the family from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century and how the process radically influenced child-rearing, education, contraception, sexual behaviour and marriage.