The family as the cornerstone of American society between the 17th and 19th century
The family has always been the cornerstone of American society. Our families nature,
preserve and pass onto each succeeding generation the values we share and cherish, values
that are foundation for our freedoms. In the family, we learn our first lessons of God and
man, love and discipline, rights, and responsibilities, human dignity and human frailty. Our
families give us daily examples of these lessons being put into practice. In raising and
instructing our children, in providing personal and compassionate care for the elderly, in
maintaining the spiritual strength of religious commitment among our people-in these and
other ways, Americas families make immeasurable contributions to Americans well-being.
Today more than ever, it is essential that these contributions not to be taken for granted and
that each of us remember that the strength of our families is vital to the strength of our
nation.”-
President of the United States of America, Ronald Reagan
“Family 1. a) The servants of a house or establishment b) the household c) the retinue of a
nobleman or grandee d) the staff of a high military officer e) a troop, school. 2. The body
of persons who live in one house or under one head, including parents, children, servants,
etc. 3. The group of persons consisting of the parents and their children, whether actually
living together or not; in a wider sense, the unity formed by those who are nearly
connected by blood or affinity. 4. Those descended or claiming descent from a common
ancestor; a house; kindred; lineage.”
(Source: Oxford English Dictionary)
Index
1. Introduction
2. The Early ages and the Colonial era
2.1. Pilgrims
2.2. Puritans
2.3. Colonial Williamsburg
2.4. Afro- American families
3. The family transformed 18th century
4. The family in the 19th century
5. Conclusion
6. Bibliography
7. Annexes
1. Introduction
There has never been just one type of family in the United States of America . African,
Indian, and European peoples have each had their own traditional family structures,
ceremonies, rites of passage, and taboos. The structure of family life for all groups
underwent transformations during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that changed
the way parents and children and husbands and wives perceived themselves one to another
and in relation to the larger society. In the early ages each person identified him- or herself
as a member of a people, a clan, a family, and a household. A people, the national
grouping, was unified by language and culture. The clan was the largest subdivision of a
people, by definition a kinship grouping since every member of a clan traced its origin
from a common ancestor, either through the fathers or the mothers line. The family
included not just parents and children but also grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, and
other relatives. The household was the smallest family. It was restricted to parents,
children, and sometimes grandparents.
By the end of the eighteenth century, the white American family had begun developing a
family structure that we now recognize as modern: one that was essentially nuclear, openly
affectionate and child-centered. Such families appeared first among the gentry class of the
society. Little by little, they became a model for other groups, and eventually the pattern
for the modern American family, or, strangely enough, what we again often refer to as the
“traditional” family
2. 2The early ages and the colonial era
. During the 17th century and the first half of the 18th century, when Americans from
European backgrounds spoke about family, they often referred to what we would call
householdsas I already mentioned: people who happen to be living together. In addition to
the husband, wife, and children, in the early ages this could include servants, apprentices,
and sometimes slaves. These earliest families were productive units, not sentimental,
affectionate groupings. The family performed a number of functions that larger institutions
now provide. The father, as head of the family, educated his sons, servants and apprentices.
Women instructed their daughters in how to run a household. Both husband and wife were
responsible for the religious development of their household members. Primary
responsibility for the order of society fell to the family, including supervising individuals,
punishing minor crimes, and reporting major felonies to local officials. There was no other
police force. Men and women provided basic health care, food, clothing, and
entertainment. In order to fill all these roles, it was expected that respect to the authorities
of master, father, mother, church, and state would be maintained. Individualism was not
valued..
Of course besides these common traits of family values in the early ages, we could find
differences in the colonies formed in the 17th century. That is why in the next parts I will
contrast the diversity of the family life of the Pilgrims, the Puritans, the Afro-American
slaves and families in Colonial Williamsburg. As these colonies were of a different origin
they brought with them a very different family structure, but also they had to adapt
differently to the new world – these two different impacts made noticeable difference
concerning their family values and ideas.
2.1 Pilgrims
First I would like to show how the Pilgrims built up their families compared to the general
17th century family. On November 11 1602 there were 102 passengers on the Mayflower
that reached the coast of Cape Cod. They had no friends to welcome them, or any houses
or much less towns to repair to-wrote William Bradford, one of the original Pilgrims. All
they could see before them was a hideous and deserted wilderness full of wild beasts and
wild men” By spring; half of the Mayflower passengers were dead.
For the Pilgrims as later for all the other English settlers one social institution was more
important than any other helping them to adapt to the new conditions, The institution was
the family , and it performed many more functions that it does today. It raised the food and
made most of the clothing and furniture, it taught children to read, to worship their god,
and care for each other in sickness and in old age. It was a patriarchal institution, ruled by
the father, who exercised authority over his wife , children and servants as much as God
ruled over his children.
The Pilgrims lived in a society in which life was colored by the inevitable presence of
death especially that of young children- 3 out of ten died before the first birthday. In such
circumstances, you would think that parents distanced themselves from their children, but
they were very attached to their children. They also believed however that even newborns
were sinful and that parents primary task was to suppress their childrens natural
wickedness, they cared deeply for their children and invested enormous energy and
amount of time in them, but they were also intent on repressing evil through harsh physical
and psychological measures. A father in early New England felt free to intervene in his
childrens lives and to control their behavior-This included the right and duty to take an
active role in his childs selection of husband or wife. They viewed marriage as a property
arrangement rather than an emotional bond based on romantic love.
2.2 Puritans
The Pilgrims and the Puritans were both coming from England, but they were different in
their religious views ( see Annex 1) , their systems of government, their everyday attitudes,
as well as in their style of clothing. In 1629, eight years after the Pilgrims arrived in
Plymouth, four hundred English Puritans arrived to Salem, Massachusetts. In 1630, ships
carried another thousand passengers, and within a year Puritans had established Boston,
Cambridge, Charlestown, Dorchester Roxbury, and Watertown. The roughly twenty
thousand Puritan men, women and children who sailed to Massachusetts between 1629 and
1640 carried with them ideas about the family entirely foreign to Americans today. The
Puritans never thought of the family as a purely a private unit, rigorously separated from
the surrounding community. To them it was an integral part of the larger political and
social world. Its boundaries were elastic and inclusive, and it assumed responsibilities that
have since been assigned to public institutions. Although most Puritan families were
nuclear in structure, a significant proposition of the population spent part of their lives in
other families home, serving as apprentices, hired laborers or servants. As many as third of
all Puritan households took on servants. For the Puritans family ties and community ties
tended to fade. In many communities, individual family members were related by birth or
marriage to a large number of their neighbors. For example in Chatham, Massachusetts,
the towns 155 families bore just 34 surnames. In that century the relatives group was of
great importance to the social, economic, and political life of the community. Kinship ties
played a critical role in the development of commercial trading networks. Partnership
among family members also played an important role in the ownership of oceangoing
vessels. Intermarriage was as well used to reinforce local political alliances and economic
partnership. Marriages between first cousins or between sets of brothers and sisters helped
to bond elite, politically active and powerful families together. Following the Revolution,
most states adopted specific reforms designed to reduce the power of those special
