The Family in Past Perspective: An Interdisciplinary Exploration of Familial Relationships Through Time

by Ellen J. Kendall (Editor), Ross Kendall (Editor)

Overview

This volume takes a more comprehensive view of past familial dynamics than has been previously attempted. By applying interdisciplinary perspectives to periods ranging from the Prehistoric to the Modern, it informs a wider understanding of the term family, and the implications of family dynamics for children and their social networks in the past.

Contributors drawn from across the humanities and social sciences present research addressing three primary themes: modes of kinship and familial structure, the convergence and divergence between the idealised image and realities of family life, and the provision of care within families. These themes are interconnected, as the idea and image of family shapes familial structure, which in turn defines the type of care and protection that families provide to their members. The papers in this volume provide new research to challenge assumptions and provoke new ways of thinking about past families as functionally adaptive, socially connected, and ideologically powerful units of society, just as they are in the present. A broad focus on the networks created by familial units also allows the experiences of historically underrepresented women and children to be highlighted in a way that underlines their interconnectedness with all members of past societies.

The Family in Past Perspective builds a much-needed bridge across disciplinary boundaries. The wide scope of the book hmakes important contributions, and informs fields ranging from bioarchaeology to women's history and childhood studies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781032015101
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	05/31/2021
Pages:	260
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Ellen J. Kendall is a postdoctoral researcher, with recent roles in the Department of Archaeology at Durham University and the EQUIPOL Research Group at the University of York. She serves as the Treasurer for the Society for the Study of Childhood in the Past (SSCIP).

Ross Kendall is an experienced field archaeologist and human osteologist, with a PhD in Archaeology and Anthropology from Durham University. He is the editorial assistant for the journal Antiquity.

Table of Contents

List of figures ix

List of tables xiv

List of contributors xv

Acknowledgements xxi

Foreword xxii

1 Family as a unifying framework for understanding past networks of cooperation and interdependence Ellen Kendall Ross Kendall 1

Part I Ties that bind: defining family structure and dynamics in the past 13

2 Slavery, emancipation, and the construction of family on San Salvador, the Bahamas John D. Burton 15

3 Alloparenting adolescents: evaluating the social and biological impacts of leprosy on young people in Saxo-Norman England (9th to 12th centuries AD) through cross-disciplinary models of care Kori Lea Filipek Charlotte Roberts Rebecca L. Gowland Katie Tucker 30

4 Blended or constructed families? Family, neighbourhood, and domestic space in early modern England Dominic Birch 58

Part II Between the ideal and the real: image, ideology, and the past family 75

5 Rousseau and the imagery of the la mère éducatrice in late 18th century French art Suzanne Conway 77

6 Mother-love in the time of malaria: the politics of internal colonisation, endemic disease, and parent-child relations in Britain Ellen J. Kendall Ross Kendall 95

7 Children in the attic: family, emotion, and material culture in a post-medieval liminal space Sally Crawford Philip Salmon Katharina Ulmschneider 116

Part III Relative needs: the provision of care and resources within familial units 135

8 Poisoned pregnancies: consequences of prenatal lead exposure in relation to infant mortality in the Roman Empire Joanna Moore Michelle Williams-Ward Kori Lea Filipek Rebecca L. Gowland Janet Montgomery 137

9 'Guarded treasures': child health care, and loss in urban families from mid-18th to 19th century London Sophie Newman 159

10 We're all in this together: accessing the maternal-infant relationship in prehistoric Vietnam Alisha B. Adams Siân E. Halcrow Charlotte L. King Melanie J. Miller Melandrivlok Andrew R. Millard Darren R. Gröcke Hallie Buckley Kate Domett Hiep Hoang Trinh Tranthi Minh Marc F. Oxenham 191

Afterword Siân E. Halcrow Rebecca L. Gowland Emma Sudron 222

Index 229