Journal of Family History articles

Recent articles from Journal of Family History

Intergenerational household structure and economic change at the turn of the twentieth century.
October 1, 1998... The historical living arrangements of the U.S. elderly have been shaped by two dimensions of household structure. The first, household composition, has undergone radical shifts over the past two centuries. The proportion of older people who lived with adult children was high - and perhaps...

Masculinity and adolescence in antebellum America: Robert Wirt at West Point, 1820-1821.
October 1, 1998... "My dear Mother," Robert Wirt wrote with amusement in response to her concerned queries about his health just before his first encampment with his class at West Point, "there is as much difference between Robert Wirt the scoolboy [sic] and Cadet R. G. Wirt, as there is between chalk and...

Widows and reputation in the diocese of Chester, England, 1560-1650.
October 1, 1998... When widows in the diocese of Chester participated in gossip or found their reputations damaged through defamation, they acted in very similar ways to their married counterparts. They used language as a tool of social influence, either to persuade others of the veracity of their own opinions...

The ties that bind: social cohesion and the Yucatec Maya family.
October 1, 1998... There is at first glance a certain opacity to the Maya family in colonial Yucatan. Reading through the many hundreds of extant notarial records in Yucatec Maya(1) - mostly wills, petitions, and land records(2) - the family unit is at once omnipresent, and yet its nature and form are elusive;...

The first American Valentine: Nahua courtship and other aspects of family structuring in Mesoamerica.
October 1, 1998... What could a western European pagan-Christian springtime festival possibly have to do with the Nahua(1) family in ancient Mesoamerica? Moreover, how can one even discuss family when there is no such term in the Nahuatl lexicon for this very fundamental social institution? The following...