Household History and Sociological Theory

This review examines one of the most fundamental issues of family history, the nature of domestic groups in which people lived in the past. The focus is further limited to the evolution of family forms in Europe. Although such models as those originally proposed by Laslett and Hajnal for western family history have been shown to be wanting, they have served an invaluable role in stimulating and guiding family history research. We are now able to begin to grasp the contours of a much more complex western family heritage than earlier scholars recognized.