The Family 1700-1914

elective courses

The course, intended for MA students, offers an analysis of the changes concerning private and family life in the 18th and 19th centuries. The first part of the course deals with the emergence of the companionate marriage and the increasingly child-centred family. The second part discusses the Victorian family life, especially in terms of continuities and contrasts with a previous epoch. The analysis concerns a selection of examples from the Royal Family to working-class homes, with numerous illustrations. The subjects discussed include the ideals of femininity and masculinity, rights of passage, treatment of sexuality and sentimentalisation of childhood.

Course plan:

1. Approaches to the study of family history. Methods of research, choice of sources. Basic concepts and schools of family history.

2. The 18c: the companionate marriage. The Close Domesticated Nuclear Family (Stone). Relations between spouses. Rousseau, Voltaire. Pursuit of freedom and personal happiness.

3. The 18c: the child-centered family. The meaning of children. Rousseau's ideas on childrearing (Emile). The New Mother - ideal and reality (Mrs Thrale). Growth of maternal breast-feeding. Portaits.

4. The legal side of marriage. Lord Hadwicke's Act, the Matrimonial Causes Act, the Married Women's Property Act. Legal aspects of obtaining and dissolving marriages. Informal ways of marrying and divorce.

5. The 18th c. to 19th c.: continuity and change. The social changes between 18th and 19th century. The middle-class values and the reaction to them. Freethinkers (Godwin, Woolstonecraft, Shelley) versus bourgeois morality. Disjoined spheres (Schiller, Tennyson).

6. The Royal Family. The monarchy before Victoria. Changes introduced by Queen Victoria - new ideal of monarchy. Middle-class queen.

7. The 19c: The Roles of Men and Women. Ideal of femininity and masculinity. Domestic servants. Religious rituals and the family.

8. 19c marriage: Ideals and reality.

9. Victorian Rights of Passage and Leisure. Courtship, marriage, mourning. Calling and social life. Holidays, Christmas.

10. Victorian Childhood. Sentimentalisation vs reality. Treatment of animals.

11. Victorian sexuality. Sexual relation within marriage. Contraception. Obsession with masturbation. Prostitution.

12. Victorian Education. More state involvement in private matters. Class and gender in education.

13. Continuity and change. Edwardian England. Decline of family size, more independence of women, domestic service less important.

Abbott, Mary, Family Ties. English Families 1540 - 1920. London and N.Y.: Routledge, 1993.

Anderson, Michael, Approaches to the History of the Western Family 1500 - 1914. London: MacMillan, 1980.

Badinter, Elizabeth, Historia miłości macierzyńskiej. Warszawa: Oficyna Wydawnicza Volumen, 1998.

Bartley, Paula, The Changing Role of Women 1815-1914. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1996.

Chartier, Roger ed., Historia Życia Prywatnego. Tom 3. Od renesansu do oświecenia. Wrocław: Ossolineum, 1999.

Davies, Jennifer, The Victorian Kitchen. London: BBC Books, 1989.

Houghton, Walter E., The Victorian Frame of Mind. New Haven and London: Yale U.P., 1976.

Mitchell, Sally, Daily Life in Victorian England. London: Greenwood Press, 1996.

Perrot, Michelle ed., Historia Życia Prywatnego. Tom 4. Od rewolucji francuskiej do I wojny światowej. Wrocław: Ossolineum, 1999.

Randall, Rona, The Model Wife. Nineteenth-century style. London: the Herbert Press, 1989.

Stone, Lawrence, The Family, Sex and Marriage in England 1500-1800. London: Penguin, 1979.

Stone, Lawrence, The Road to Divorce. England 1530-1987. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992.

Knowledge:

A student learns about the most important theories of cultural studies within the field of English studies.

A student develops the knowledge of the complexity of cultures in the anthropological perspective.

A student learns about the historical, political, cultural and social reality of the English-speaking countries.

Skills:

A student develops the skill of using appropriate terminology of cultural studies.

A student learns to use the methodology of cultural studies.

Competences:

A student is a conscious participant of culture.

A student expresses him/herself in a clear, coherent and logical way.

In class discussions students acquire skills of expressing their thoughts in a clear, coherent, logical and precise manner, with the use of language which is correct grammatically, lexically and phonetically

Written tasks and tests during the semester, final oral exam.

20% absences is allowed.