Traditional Families serve a pivotal role in shaping all aspects of young men and girls’ lives. In 18th century Europe, the concept of family appeared in 2 forms, a nuclear family, and an extended family household. A nuclear unit constituted of a mother, father and their children. When the children grew up they moved out of the home and formed their own households. Extended families included a dominant older male who controlled the rest of the household, including his wife, children and his sons or younger brother’s families. Extended family models appeared less often in Western Europe and they typically formed in times of economic hardship. Most European families in the 1700’s worked in agriculture or trades related to sustaining rural …show more content…
The court case addresses the life of a married couple named Martin and Bertrande. The coupled married young and after a few years of marriage, Martin abandoned his wife and child to go join the army. After years of being gone, Martin returns a fully-grown man and his family rejoiced. As the story unfolds it becomes evident that the “New Martin Guerre” is an imposter and he is eventually put on trial by his uncle and members of his extended family who believe that he is an imposture. Later in the case the real Martin Guerre returns from war to prove his identity and inadvertently protected his family’s property and …show more content…
For example, in Emilie’s village a sweet and amicable girl named Angèle married her drunk, brute of cousin and continually suffered his abuses because as his wife she had no legal right to defend herself and had to remain his “submissive”. Mrs. Carles sister Emile-Rose married a man who abused her and eventually drove her insane. She married him in part because she became pregnant and the patriarchal structure required that women marry before a child was born as to create property rights for the child. A child born outside of marriage burdened the commune since they had no rights to their parent’s land or tools and when the child grew up it would not be able to support themselves. In contrast Mrs. Carles broke the traditional patriarchal system by marrying a man her father did not necessarily approve of and by receiving a formal education that allowed her increased autonomy. Most girls in rural European communities never learned to write and reading centered around preparing women for their first communion and to be moral members of their future husband’s household. Mrs. Carles spent her teaching career attempting to “air out “antiquated ideas on patriarchal rule in the French mountain side. Mrs. Carles progressive life helped bring modern family ideals to her French province through her position as a teacher and loving
The main focus of the story is on Bertrande de Rols and her place in sixteenth century society, especially as a wife. At the age of nine, Bertrande was married to Martin Guerre who was a young peasant of Basque heritage. For several years, the two have trouble consummating their marriage. In 1548, Martin runs away from his village of Artigat, France to join the Spanish army, leaving his twenty-two year old wife Bertrande and a young son. After eight years of living in quiet desperation, an imposter Arnaud du Tilh nicknamed "Pansette," shows up in the village in 1548, in the guise of Martin Guerre. It is no wonder that Bertrande would finally find fulfillment of her hopes and dreams of a better life with the new Martin. The couple's marital bliss unravels the day Arnaud argues with his uncle, Pierre Guerre, over his desire to sell off some of his ancestral land. Under Basque tradition and custom, a man is never to sell his ancestral land this causes Pierre to be suspicious of the identity of his nephew and he decides to sue Arnaud as an imposter.
Martin Guerre from Artigat had left his wife Bertrande and their son Sanxi and their inheritance to seek adventure in Spain as a mercenary. After leaving his family for nearly nine years a man claiming to be Martin returns to the village to claim his wife and land. Bertrande accepts the man as being her husband and they have another child together. Martin has a dispute with Pierre over the management of the family estate and ownership of the rents from Matins land during his absence. During their dispute a passing by veteran had claimed that "Martin" is not who he claims to be. He said that Martin had lost a leg at the battle of Saint Quentin and that he really was Arnaud de Tihl from a neighboring village. Both Martin and Arnaud had soldered together in the war, where they had became friends. The Guerre family was very divided over the story. Pierre and his sons-in-law believe the soldier's story, and Pierres daughters and Bertrande continue to believe "Martin" is Martin. As their ca...
The Return of Martin Guerre, written by Natalie Zemon Davis, is the tale of a court case that takes place in sixteenth century France. Martin Guerre is a peasant who deserted his wife and family for many years. While Martin Guerre is gone, a man named Arnaud du Tilh arrives at Martin’s village and claims to be Martin Guerre. Bertrande, who is Guerre’s wife, Guerre’s sisters, and many of the villagers, accepts the imposter. After almost three years of being happily married, Bertrande takes the fraud to court under pressure of Pierre Guerre, her stepfather and Guerre’s brother. Arnaud du Tilh is almost declared innocent, but the real Martin Guerre appears in the courthouse. Throughout this tale, many factors of the peasant life are highlighted. The author gives a very effective and detailed insight to a peasant’s life during the time of Martin Guerre. Davis does a successful job of portraying the peasant lifestyle in sixteenth century France by accentuating the social, cultural, and judicial factors of everyday peasant life.
In Janet Lewis’ “The Wife of Martin Guerre,” the author illustrates the family dynamics of the sixteenth century. Martin would legally remain a minor for the extent of his father’s lifetime, and women’s identity and importance were only known through their husbands. However, Bertrande de Rols, the wife of Martin Guerre, is known as herself in this novel, which expresses that the novel was written according to her experience as the wife of Martin Guerre. Even though it wasn’t acceptable for women to go forward with such accusations, Bertrande de Rols did the right thing by pursuing Arnaud as an impostor because she knew he was not her husband, despite what everyone else said. In sixteenth century France, women were not independent and treated as equals as they are today.
It seems as though in today’s society, suspicion lies in every corner. No one trusts anyone anymore, everyone lies, everyone steals, everyone pretends to be someone they are not. However true or false these statements might be, there is a need in today’s society to be able to explain everything, coming up with every possible lie or predicament within every story. Natalie Davis is from today’s society, and once again, she has found the need to investigate Bertrande Guerre’s role within The Return of Martin Guerre. The only pieces of evidence that are reliable come from Jean de Coras, the main judge in the trial.
Davis’ The Return of Martin Guerre is challenged when trying to connect the heroes to the current or modern times. Despite Arnaud’s teetering morality, ethical behavior or actions, he was still able to develop a modern identity. He effectively presented himself in the necessary role of Martin Guerre, as though he was a professional actor or artist.
Naivety as well as the longing to fit into society with a loving man and stable, well-to-do peasant family deceived an honorable woman. Bertrande de Rols’ young marriage had difficulties from the start. With the guidance from family, the Catholic Church and Basque customs, Bertrande attempted to follow the sixteenth-century expectations for women, but was misled by her own fear, loneliness and catastrophic past.
Throughout time, family dynamics continually adapt to fit an always changing society. Using the sociological imagination, I can analyze my family’s history to understand the shift between Puritan farming life to the Industrial Era to the modern-day family I live in now.
Thesis Statement: Men and women were in different social classes, women were expected to be in charge of running the household, the hardships of motherhood. The roles that men and women were expected to live up to would be called oppressive and offensive by today’s standards, but it was a very different world than the one we have become accustomed to in our time. Men and women were seen to live in separate social class from the men where women were considered not only physically weaker, but morally superior to men. This meant that women were the best suited for the domestic role of keeping the house. Women were not allowed in the public circle and forbidden to be involved with politics and economic affairs as the men made all the
Over the centuries, these methods have changed. These methods are changed because of events in history. Such events like the Industrial Revolution, the Great Depression, WWII, and mass numbers of Immigrants are said to be the cause for the loss of the "traditional family. Coontz states, "The Industrial Revolution destroyed the traditional family." The Industrial Era provided work for younger ages. With the age of the work force lowered, children had less time to play; the roles for women were redefined, causing more individuality with in a family. This was not the style of the traditional family, when the wife cooks the meals, takes care of kids; the husband goes to work, and supports the family, traditionally.
Family structure and stability have constantly evolved and been researched in aspects of sociology. Following World War II, the family ideology in the 1950’s was brought to the attention of Talcott Parsons and Robert Bales (1955) whom demonstrated how transitioning from an agricultural society to that of an industrialization one played an important role in altering family life and structure. Parsons and Bales further expressed how gender role specialization was vital in the continuous of family solidarity. The “instrumental” male father role as the leader of the family responsible for providing the income and support as the “expressive” role which is that of the female mother delivers her contribution to the family through house work and nurture
Family life in the 1700's was highly valued and prioritized. Back in those times families were extremely large in size. There was much inter-marriages from generation to generation, Therefore, everyone in a community was most likely related to each other. Because of these extreme connections between communities, visiting fellow family members was very popular. Many of these visits were informal and prolonged. Out of everyone in a family, the women usually corresponded the most with other relatives. The lack of decently designed roads and great distances made the matter of traveling very important in social activities. In addition, the family was looked upon as a unit of production and enterprise. Most families in the 1700's contained usually twenty to thirty people. These large numbers were due to the fact that the families were extended. Every relative lived together, even if they were distant relatives. Families with ten or twelve children were common and those with twenty or twenty-five children were not regarded as abnormal. But, usually not all the children survived. Typically, four in ten children dies before they reached the age of sixteen.
"A family is a small social group of people related by ancestry or affection, who share common values and goals, who may live together in the same dwelling, and who may participate in the bearing and raising of children. They have a physical or emotional connection with each other that is ongoing" (Vissing, 2011) and is the foundation of all societies. They can be formed by a grouping of father-mother-children or even more complicated combination of relatives. In the primary stage of family life in the United States, everyone from every generation lived together in one house. Subsequently, the idea of traditional family evolved and a married couple with children is at present, often called the traditional family. There are many types of families; however, this paper will focus on the traditional family. It will describe how the functionalist perspective, conflict perspective, and the interactionism theory apply to the sociological institution known as a family. It will explain some of the similarities and differences between the sociological theories in regards to families and how they affect the family members.
The extended family predominated pre-industrially because of the need for a large family to help tend the land or look after those who were unable to do so. Infant mortality was high so you had to produce more children to be sure of having enough help. The family were a unit of production producing only the goods needed to survive and trading the remainder. Following the Industrial Revolution in the late 19th century, it was replaced by the nuclear family which was a unit of consumption as family members became wage earners and families needed to become more geographically mobile and move to where they could find work.
To thoroughly elaborate on the institution of family we most look at the family as it was before and how much it has changed over time. Throughout the years we are recognizing that the family is slowly being replaced by other agents of socialization. Families in the past consisted of a mother and a father and most times children. We are, as many societies a patriarchal society; men are usually the head of the households. This has always been considered the norm.