Fragile Families

Marriage and Domestic Life in the Age of Bourgeois Modernity (1750-1900)

Joachim Eibach, Alissa Jones Nelson

• Publisher: De Gruyter Oldenbourg
• Year: 2023
• ISBN:
  9783111081700
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: History

In the era of bourgeois modernity (1750–1900), the family is as valued as it is vulnerable. It constitutes a community of care, conflict, and emotion. Time and again, it is evoked as a bond of love as well as a moral institution. Yet both love and morality are fragile. A more detailed exploration reveals that domestic life during this period was much more colorful, open, and dynamic – and also more prone to crisis – than one might expect given the vaunted view of the family that characterized the heyday of the bourgeoisie.

This book rewrites the history of the modern family. Self-narratives – primarily diaries – written by members of eight families from Germany, Switzerland, and Austria serve as sources for this research. The focus extends far beyond the bourgeoisie. With a micro-historical eye, the author reconstructs family histories from the peasant milieu to the patrician elite, from the parsonage to the educated bourgeoisie; he considers the domestic life of a journeyman craftsman, a couple's descent from the ranks of the petite bourgeoisie, the effects of an itinerant childhood among the proletariat, and the strain of being caught between a bourgeois family and artistic individuality. Many of these aspects point beyond bourgeois modernity to the family in our time.

Table of contents

• Acknowledgements
• Contents
• Chapter 1 Fragile Families? Stylish Staging and Everyday Disorder
• Chapter 2 Research and Sources
• Chapter 3 Love and a House of His Own: The Peasant Ulrich Bräker Seeks a Wife
• Chapter 4 Pious Everyday Life in the Bailiwick and the Patrician Milieu: Henriette Stettler-Herport
• Chapter 5 Bourgeois Marriage and Open Domesticity: Ferdinand and Caroline Beneke
• Chapter 6 The Parsonage as Labyrinth: Ursula and Abraham Bruckner-Eglinger
• Chapter 7 A Traveling Journeyman’s Home: Friedrich Anton Püschmann
• Chapter 8 Marital Crisis and Social Decline Among the Petite Bourgeoisie: Barbara and Johann Baumgartner
• Chapter 9 Growing Up Among the Proletariat: Friedrich Engels’ Report and Adelheid Popp
• Chapter 10 From a Bourgeois Family to an Artists’ Marriage: Paula Becker and Otto Modersohn
• Chapter 11 The Family: Decline or Resilience?
• List of Figures
• Bibliography
• Index of Persons
• Index of Subjects