Perspectives on the Family in Spain Past and Present

This is the first comprehensive study of family life throughout Spain between 1700 and 1970. Using local and aggregate source material, David Reher builds upon the growing interest of historians and social scientists in the study of the family, and its importance for the demographic, social, and economic reproduction of society. The study adopts methodological approaches from a number of disciplines and encompasses the great regional and local complexity characteristic of Spanish society both now and in the past. Key subjects considered include co-residence patterns, family systems, family demography, family economies, kinship networks, marriage markets, infant care, the elderly, the limits of vulnerability, and individual life-course. Despite the major changes that have taken place in Spanish family forms, the author concludes that there is little evidence to support the view that it has become mired in a period of irreversible decadence. His analysis and conclusions are reinforced by well over a hundred maps, figures and tables.