English family life 1576-1716 (review)

152 Reviews Houlbrooke, R., English family life 1576-1716, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1988; pp. xiv, 269; R.R.P. A U S $39.95. This welcome collection of extracts from diaries both published and unpublished gives some vivid glimpses of persond experience of family events. It is divided into sections such as 'courtship' and 'childhood', which will make it a handy reference for students. Some of the extracts are from readily available published diaries, such as Samuel Pepys, Ralph Josselin, and Anne Clifford, although the editor has compared many of these with the manuscript originals, giving his grading of the printed version in the Appendix. Other extracts more usefully draw on unpublished diaries. Particularly interesting are the short extracts from the two Woodforde diaries. Houlbrooke's introduction states his aim of concentrating on rarer ones but he includes many of the better-known, presumably for the sake of completeness. The editor wisely warns of the unsuitability of these sources for making wide generdisations on the questions initidly rdsed by Lawrence Stone about the coldness of family emotions, as the material is not necessarily representative. The two accounts of the father-son relationship here were both written by people troubled by it. The courtship section includes Dudley Rhyder's cogitations on the inconveniences versus the attractions of prospective matrimony and makes a nice comparison with Richard Rogers' analysis on the possible loss of a wife. Elizabeth Livingstone's misery at the speed with which her former suitor married another woman depicts strong emotion tellingly. In the childhood section there is evidence of parentd concern, especially over children's illnesses and accidents such as falling in thefire.One father, Henry Newcome, admits 'what a deal of patience is requisite to bear any converse with our little children', but he did think it necessary to converse with them. Elsewhere in the book there is information on breastfeeding and wetnursing in various social classes; dso on how soon children learned to walk. Although the book has a starting date of 1576, only six of the seventyseven extracts are from the sixteenth century, as a result of the scarcity of intimate diaries before the mid-seventeenth century. Therefore there is a strong concentration on the period after 1660, which needs to be taken into account when comparing extracts on each topic. It is unfortunate that all the comments included here on pregnancy and childbirth give the m d e view, except one, and that one is from Alice Thornton's diary, one of the best-known published sources. While it is true that some of these husbands give poignant descriptions of their wives' childbearing, more use of women's views, such as those of the Countess of Bridgewatcr, would have created a better balance on such an intrinsicdly female experience. The use of diaries can give a somewhat selfconscious view, as has been pointed out by Linda Pollock in her Forgotten Children, and by Sara Mendclson. For general readers and especially for students Reviews 153 of family history this collection therefore needs to be supplemented by reading other sources such as contemporary letters, particularly to understand women's history. But Houlbrooke provides a most useful starting point to the sources. Alison Wall Department of History University of Sydney. Ingram, M., Church courts, sex and marriage in England 1570-1640 (Past and Present publications), Cambridge, C.U.P., 1987; pp. xiii, 412; 17 tables; 2 maps; R.R.P. A U S $126.00 It is good to see Martin Ingram's much consulted Ph.D. thesis become a substantial book. His main purpose is to examine the workings of the ecclesiastical courts before the civil wars. Inheriting a framework from the prereformation church, the courts focused on the churchwardens' presentments for moral offences. Whereas the abolition of the courts has led many to conclude that they were corrupt inefficient and unpopular, Ingram shows that they worked comparatively well in enforcing social codes, particularly in the sexual area. Their abolition in 1640 he expldns partly as a response to their very success, for they contributed to the decline in the bastardy rate, something the community was dways deeply concerned about. The records of these courts have...