In this book, the author provides a detailed analysis of kinship,
household and family relations in early modern France. He discusses the
strength of kinship and family ties, the structure of households, the
rights and duties of husband and wife, their authority over their
children, the role of the family in education, the position of servants
within the family, the attitudes and sentiments of different family
members towards each other and the differences between noble and peasant
families. He also deals with the changes in the patterns of sexual life
that occurred in this period and investigates the beginnings of birth
control in the late eighteenth century, and the possibilities or
abortion and divorce. Professor Flandrin uses primarily documentary
evidence from early modern France, but also draws comparisons with
England in the same period, and with the medieval and modern family. His
book provides a fascinating account of the intimate life of men and
women in past society, and shows how that society has exerted a lasting
influence on the behaviour of our contemporaries.