History: Family and Children Essay

Submitted By jadame9090
Words: 546
Pages: 3

People on the Move During the seventeenth century, family had been seen as the foundation of the social order and the central of instrumental life. Family was considered a colonial conception. The colonial family was in charge of the children, the basic unit of economic production, the center of religious observance, and the elderly. Families would have a lot of children due to the need of the many hands to work the fields and be able to produce their own living. The husband and the older son’s would help the dad with the field work, while the mom and the daughter’s would take care of the house work. They would knit, cook, clean, and many other house chores. Marriages would be arranged for the convenience of the wealth of the family and not really based on the opinion of the ones getting married. The families would look for someone with land, because land would mean money. Also one married the husband was the head of the household. He would imply authority. If the children would misbehave he would be the one to deal with the issue. As a father he would discipline his children with physical actions. There were also a few craftsmen that had specialized skills to produce items difficult to produce at home such as hats, iron implements, men’s clothing, saddles, and shoes. Women would have many pregnancies during her life to be able to have enough children to be able to help support the family, since families used to be self-sustained. But as time passed by the economy started changing and with that change came change to the families also. And the economy started to become more industrialized. There were less and less farms and more factories that would supply the things that people needed. With this change families started realizing that they had no more need of so many children because they were not self-sustained as much as they used to be, and now they had to provide for their children instead of the children helping to