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Loading... Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life (1960)by Philippe Ariès, Robert Baldick
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In this pioneering and important book, Philippe Aries surveys children and their place in family life from the Middle Ages to the end of the eighteenth century. The first section of the book explores the gradual change from the medieval attitude to children, looked upon as small adults as soon as they were past infancy, to the seventeenth and eighteenth century awareness of the child as the focal point of family life. Aries goes on to examine the schooling of children and the development of modern educational methods. In the second section, he describes the metamorphosis of the family- at first the family was a unit in which everything was open and public and children mingled with adults in the social life of the community; eventually the family become a closed or private society, within which children had a unique and important status. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)301.42Social sciences Social Sciences; Sociology and anthropology Sociology and anthropology Formerly: Social structureLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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Until the end of the middle ages, particularly before the 16th century, Western society barely distinguished between the sphere of adults and children. We early learn that in bygone ages children worked, married and even went to war before they ever hit puberty. The idea of childhood innocence is fairly new according to Aries. He provides startling evidence of that, particularly from the diary of a physician describing the childhood of the future King Louis XIII of France. Adults casually played with a child's genitals, children nonchalantly exposed themselves, and crude sexual jokes and comments were made in front of children.
Memorable and striking as that was, it also does identify one weakness I found in the work--that so much was focused on France, and in this case what has to be the most atypical of childhoods, that of royalty. Arles was also often exhaustive in his details to the point of tedium. This really isn't a popular history written to entertain. On the other hand this is an erudite and enlightening survey of the topic, based on what is obviously prodigious and meticulous original research that took in fascinating details of the history not just of childhood but dress and especially education and the nuances between not just children and adults but factors of gender and class. Published in 1960 it was a seminal work on the subject, and I still find many of the customs detailed and theories propounded thought-provoking. ( )