Journal of Family History articles from October 1998

Journal of Family History archives from October 1998

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

"If it shall seem just and proper": the effect of race and morals on alimony and child support appeals in the District of Columbia, 1950-1980.
October 1, 1998... Jewell Mazique was a prominent scholar-journalist. She was a leader in human rights activity in the nation's capital and a crusader for quality education. Her husband, Edward Mazique, was perhaps the best-known African American physician in the...

Children in Moral Danger and the Problem of Government in Third Republic France.
October 1, 1998... Sylvia Schafer, Children in Moral Danger and the Problem of Government in Third Republic France. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997, pp. ix + 232. In 1889, after almost a decade of debate, the French government enacted the Law...