i tend to agree with james. until the mid 1800's, most families lived and worked together on farms.
the Industrial Revolution suddenly and thoroughly changed that as fathers and daughters moved to cities for work. today, fathers (and recently mothers) are absent from the home until they return at night from work. i believe this economic change is the cause of the changes to the family you describe. i believe the Enlightenment ideas you describe were a reaction these economic changes, not a cause, and were an attempt to provide a political accomodation to the economic changes.
the current workplace and social changes brought about by the digital revolution will also result in new intellectual, political and social realities that current generations may find abhorrent but which generations to come will find normal. perhaps Trumpism is our first taste of such changes. perhaps we are also seeing the first effects of these changes on religion as people are moving away from building-centered religious institutions much as they moved away from home-centered family life in the 1800's and 1900's.
An interesting article! I wonder, though, whether it wasn't also the Industrial Revolution that made the family more nuclear? It caused families to move to cities for work, often leaving the communities their families had lived in for generations, the father was removed from the home, sometimes the mother too, in order to provide for their families, the houses in the industrial towns they lived in were often more designed for a smaller nuclear family, the kids would go to school to learn a trade. The Industrial Revolution and the Enlightenment began around the same time (1700s).
i tend to agree with james. until the mid 1800's, most families lived and worked together on farms.
the Industrial Revolution suddenly and thoroughly changed that as fathers and daughters moved to cities for work. today, fathers (and recently mothers) are absent from the home until they return at night from work. i believe this economic change is the cause of the changes to the family you describe. i believe the Enlightenment ideas you describe were a reaction these economic changes, not a cause, and were an attempt to provide a political accomodation to the economic changes.
the current workplace and social changes brought about by the digital revolution will also result in new intellectual, political and social realities that current generations may find abhorrent but which generations to come will find normal. perhaps Trumpism is our first taste of such changes. perhaps we are also seeing the first effects of these changes on religion as people are moving away from building-centered religious institutions much as they moved away from home-centered family life in the 1800's and 1900's.
don lewis
An interesting article! I wonder, though, whether it wasn't also the Industrial Revolution that made the family more nuclear? It caused families to move to cities for work, often leaving the communities their families had lived in for generations, the father was removed from the home, sometimes the mother too, in order to provide for their families, the houses in the industrial towns they lived in were often more designed for a smaller nuclear family, the kids would go to school to learn a trade. The Industrial Revolution and the Enlightenment began around the same time (1700s).