Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life
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 show more 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. show lessTags
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I can't remember when I first picked up this book, but it's one that made a deep impression on me because back in my teens I had little appreciation for how deeply alien the past can be. This book is a "reply to this question on the modernity of the idea of the family" and so a history of childhood, how the very conception changed over the last four centuries through examining art, diaries, letters, literature and their depictions of children, their dress, toys and games and especially education. It makes the case that the conception of "the special nature of childhood," and that a more child-centered society created the family. In Aries view, it may once have taken a village to raise a child, but it's the nuclear family that emerged show more from modern mores, the carving out of a private sphere, and especially modern education and that "sociability and the concept of the family are incompatible and could only develop at each other's expense."
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. show less
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. show less
Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life by Philippe Aries (1965)
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Childhood: Books for or about children in different cultures around the wor
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- Canonical title
- Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life
- Original title
- L'enfant et la vie familiale sous l'Ancien Régime
- Original publication date
- 1960
- Epigraph*
- /
- Dedication*
- Á mes parents
Á mes beaux-parents - First words*
- Préface
On dit que l’arbre cache la forêt, mais le temps merveilleux de la recherche reste celui où l’historien commence juste à imaginer la vue d’ensemble, quand la brume n’a pas fini de se déchirer qu... (show all)i voile les horizons lointains, tant qu’il n’a pas pris trop de distance avec le détail des documents bruts, et que ceux-ci conservent encore toute leur fraîcheur. [...] - Original language*
- Français
- Disambiguation notice*
- Ne pas combiner avec l'édition de la collection Points histoire, Seuil qui est une version abrégée
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
Classifications
- Genres
- Sociology, Nonfiction, History, General Nonfiction
- DDC/MDS
- 301.42 — Society, Government, and Culture Social sciences, sociology & anthropology Sociology and anthropology Formerly: Social structure
- LCC
- HQ792 .F7 .A73 — Social sciences The family. Marriage, Women and Sexuality The Family. Marriage. Women The family. Marriage. Home Children. Child development
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 622
- Popularity
- 46,637
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (3.56)
- Languages
- 9 — Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Norwegian (Bokmål), Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 20
- ASINs
- 5
