Hello everyone and welcome to the History of England episode 283, the little Commonwealth.

We have a few times talked about the early modern concept of the Commonwealth. The idea

that England was it structured and hierarchical society, but it was one bound by mutual obligations,

where all were entitled to the benefits of the Commonwealth, but in order to deserve

those benefits, they must faithfully fulfill their allotted role.

Last time, we talked about the community of the English parish, which might be viewed as

a little Commonwealth, run very much according to the same hierarchies and obligations as

the kingdom, and like the kingdom, the parish had its governors and its religious and its

workers.

The same then might also be said about the household. The household was another such little Commonwealth,

it had its governor, and since society was both patriarchal and a gerontocracy, that governor

was the male head of the household, the father was the representative almost of the monarch,

and wife, servants, children, all odobidians, and obedience was required for the correct operation

of the household.

Now I have to say, this is a topic that tends to confuse me since personal relationships

are not a strong point, and it's very hard not to see a household through modern eyes.

Namely, if you have a family, it's going to be messy, there's going to be a bit of

argy bargy, there's going to be a bit of give and take. But within the context of a household,

all those hard and fast rules and gender roles will get seriously blurred. Now I'm clearly

wrong, and like everything, context is king.

Nonetheless, the historiography of family relationships does seem to have moved on a little,

so it used to be thought that parents probably did not love their children very much in medieval

...