|
|
|
REVIEWS
| A History of Household Government in America. By Carole Shammas (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2002, xiii plus 232 pp. $55.00).
|
| In recent years, several studies examining the ways in which marriage has not only been a civil institution and legal arrangement historically, but also a foundation of civic life with important connections to the state, have expanded our understanding of American marriages and family relationships. Carole Shammas' A History of Household Government in America is a welcome addition to this literature; however, she shifts the focus to the household, defined not as "those persons related to one another by genes or marriage but... a broader group held together today by coresidency and earlier by dependents' relationship with the head."1 The phrase "household government" in the title hints at key features in Shammas' analysis—governing within the household, usually embodied by the male head, and external economic, legal, and social conditions that affect, and even assume, that governance. |
1
|
|
In this brief volume, Shammas covers a lot of ground, beginning with historical sociological theories of the household. She then traces the origins of colonial households, comprised of a household head, usually the husband and father, and dependents ranging from his wife and children to extended kin and bound laborers. Shammas argues that during the colonial period through the Early Republic household heads' authority declined for several reasons. In the seventeenth century, local governments could intervene if households did not meet community standards regarding orderly behavior by dependents. Well into the colonial period local governments had the authority to act if heads of household failed to meet the economic needs of their dependents. As these public interventions eroded household heads' authority, the American Revolution brought additional decline through what Shammas calls weak support for household heads to control the "exit" of dependents from the household, evidenced by low numbers of marriage contracts and lax methods of religious and state enforcement if fathers tried to intervene in their children's choice of marriage partners. In addition, male household heads tended to keep property in their own hands rather than disburse it to dependents in their lifetime; the tradeoff for retaining property, however, was the decline of household heads' authority in dependents' life choices. |
. . . |
There are about 714 more words in this article.
Please log in (or, if you are not yet an
authorized user, please go to the
User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
|
