Family and Church: Enduring Institutions
I. General Family Life
As a result of myths of white family life, there has been much confusion over the nature of black families. One of the myths of the nineteenth century entails the close- knit white family, which was parallel to that of the European family. Also, as a result of these myths, scholars often ignored the differences of American and European life. For example, women in frontier areas had a much stronger voice in family affairs than most scholars realized, simply because of the shortage of women. Therefore, women exercised a large percentage of authority in the family. In the cities where family was of little importance as an economic unit and the father was often at work, the care of the children was primarily the responsibility of the mother. By 1880, the American family became more democratic.
After the second half of the nineteenth century, changes in the nature and functions of the family occurred. For......
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Approximate Word Count: 1818
Approximate Pages: 7 (260 words per double-spaced page) |