Questions tagged [family]
For questions on the history of kinship groups commonly characterised by shared kinship, marriage ties, or residency.
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Did humans live more densely in the past, and if so, how much denser?
I know family sizes were larger in the past, "average U.S. household – from 5.79 people per household in 1790 to 2.58 in 2010." but how closely did those family members live in their houses?
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Has a US President's family member ever been indicted or arrested during or after the Presidential term?
No United States president has ever been indicted or charged with a crime during or after their presidency. (According to my search / this Quora post)
Has a president's family member ever been ...
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Is there systematic cross-country studies about the relationship between individualistic/collectivistic cultures and the number of unique last names?
Anecdotally, more individualistic cultures (e.g. England) tend to have many last names, while more collectivistic cultures (e.g. Korea) tend to have many common last names (Choi, Lee, etc.).
Is there ...
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How modern is the current paradigm of parenting?
Currently there is a parenting paradigm of emotionally involved, caring, loving parent-child relationships. This can be reflected in activities like reading to children, spending time in the park, ...
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Did Victorian parents raise their children "sexless" to prolong innocence?
I was reading the (albeit not very historical) Chatelaine article "Can You Actually Raise A Baby Free From Gender?" and came across the statement:
The notion that a boy should have short ...
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How did the bride's family benefit from providing a large dowry in Renaissance Italy? [closed]
[Please note, I do not personally in any way endorse the inequality of women. I seek to understand better the politics of marriage in Renaissance Europe]
UPDATE: Since this question was closed before ...
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How common was poisoning as tool of murder among common people in 19th and early 20th century Europe? [closed]
We all know famous people who were murdered by poisoning from ancient times till today. I am not interested in this, I am more interested in average people killing their spouses, relative (maybe ...
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What did a wine gauger do in the 1900s?
I am researching my family tree to create a Christmas present for my dad. I ordered my grandad's birth certificate and his father's occupation is listed as 'wine gauger of 48 Cheetham Street ...
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Were single men permitted to adopt in the 1930's-40's USA?
I am writing a historical fiction tale, and have a question about families of the time.
The situation in my book is that there are two brothers in the peacetime US Navy Aviation corps, and one of them ...
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Did the Catholic Church ban adoption in the Middle Ages?
In the book Contours of the World Economy (2007), by Angus Maddison, it says:
The adoption of Christianity as a state religion in 380 AD led to basic changes
in the nature of European marriage, ...
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To what extent did the medieval European peasantry know their extended family?
It may not be possible to find a definitive answer to this question, as I know the answer to this would have varied from family to family and culture to culture, but I am curious to know to what ...
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Was there ever a president of the united states related to more than 1 other president?
I know that george bush and his father were presidents, as well as John Adams (I think), is there any president of the USA who was biologically related to 2 or more other presidents?
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Did Antoine de Saint-Exupery have any offspring?
Looking through the wikipedia > Antoine de Saint-Exupery, I see he had a number of partners, one of them was Consuelo de Saint Exupéry (the character who probably inspired the rose in The Little ...
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What was the median age at first marriage for women in Britain from 1890 to 1970?
I am interested in not the mean but rather in the median. So far, I have had the highest difficulty in attaining any information on this matter for the United Kingdom or Great Britain. Thankfully, the ...
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What "exactly" is the difference between "Clan" and "Family"? [closed]
The reason why I ask this question, is, because there are many non Japanese who would like to say ( For example ) Takeda Clan, instead of Takeda Family.
We Japanese do not hold a huge meeting like ...
user12387
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Are "pots of memory" an historical custom?
I found a term "pots of memory" in a novel. I searched on the web but I could not find any clues.
The novel, "Kokushikan Satsujinjiken" by Mushitaro Oguri was published 1934 in Japan and people ...
user36482
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To prevent sex were men bound in bags or locked in beds?
I remember in the past, before marriage, a woman’s family would bind her man when he stayed with her in a sleeping bag or bed.
Essentially it would lock him into this bag/bed thing so he couldn’t ...
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How can we be certain of customs in the primitive age?
I am currently reading Our Oriental Heritage by William Durant.
In Chapter IV. The Family, Durant writes of woman:
In the hunting stage she did almost all the work except the actual capture of the ...
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How flexible is kinship taxonomy in Jewish communities?
Recently I read this article, which describes the flexible use of the word cousin in African-American and Latinx communities. It made me wonder: historically, have Jewish communities have had ...
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Is living at home into adulthood a modern phenomenon?
I'm looking into my family history and one of my ancestors in 1901 was still living at home with his father, mother and younger siblings at age 25 in England.
This is atypical with most of the ...
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Why did people have so many children in Victorian times?
I'm looking into my ancestry, and I found out that my great-great-grandfather, born in 1897, was one of fourteen children!
Now I know that even for the period this is a large number of children to ...
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What rights did women have in Switzerland in the first few years of the 20th century?
What were the legal rights of women in Switzerland in 1900-1905? Did women have the right to own property such as jewelry? Did items of value belong to her father if she was under the age of 24? ...
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Are there any historical examples of possible alternatives to the "Nuclear Family"?
The nuclear family we see today is basically the smallest most regular social structure. Others exist like the company or the church, but at the end of the day most people ether live alone or within ...
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What is the history of stay at home moms?
I am interested in learning more information regarding the history of family structures, specifically as relates to stay at home parents.
The only data I can really find is from the late 60s until ...
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Did Jim Morrison ever comment on his father's career choice or role in the Vietnam war?
I'm just wondering if and what Jim Morrison ever said about his relationship with his father Rear Admiral George Stephen Morrison with regard to his position in the Navy, or his role in starting the ...
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How frequently were girls adopted in Ancient Rome?
Looking over Wikipedia's article on adoption in Ancient Rome, I notice that it mentions that adoption of females "was much less common" than adoption of males. I don't see any sources for that ...
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Why didn't Roman emperors have harems?
Harems were common in the Orient; the Chinese emperor, the Ottoman sultan, and the Mongol emperor all had many wives.
Roman Emperors did not have a similar custom. Why is the harem common in the ...
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What was the average size of French families during the Middle Ages?
My question takes place in at the beginning of the middle-ages in France.
Let's focus on small villages and ordinary people (peasants, craftsmen, etc.).
I would like to know how many people used to ...
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When did monogamy become the norm in Ancient Greece?
This article says
The case for an automatic association between Christianity and
monogamy is weakened further by the fact that socially imposed
monogamy was first established in ancient Greece and ...
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Did people use to marry much younger during the last millennium?
I've frequently heard it stated that "people used to marry at much younger ages" historically. Recently, these kinds of statements have tended to show up in sociological discussions about young ...
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Why is it that the maiden name is traditionally dropped when a woman is getting married?
Haven't seen anything online, even after googling. Wikipedia seems to only list the countries that support the practice, but offers no history.
Why is it that the maiden name is traditionally dropped ...
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