Family Life

During the middle ages, the word family was the basic unit of society but it did not remain the same in the east and west.  In general term the word family can be defined as a group of people united by marriage. This concept was used in the middle ages. The manner of the family varied with status and wealth.  The family residents changed by births, marriages, economically, socially, arrivals and deaths.  The making of the families extended beyond residential units no matter their size or class. Family and relationship ties with all blood relatives both paternal and maternal and all spiritual relations by marriage or sacramental ties through baptism and godparent hood. These relatives were not allowed to marry each other for fear that they suffer the consequences of the sin of incest.

These families were the primary and ordinary network for family strategies for the transmission of property, Status, economic obligation, name, and symbolic prestige. Family structure was important in the middle ages, since it linked to revenge among the noble groups and the waging of private wars or political conflicts. Family and relationship was more stable in Judaism. Laws were modified to deal with the new situations. Kinship remained important in public and private life.  Marriage was projected if not forced. Only under certain circumstances divorces were allowed.

Family was a wide-ranging term that incorporated grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins in Islam. It was assumed to be an economic component both for the nuclear family and the extended family. Respect and responsibility, with duties and their rights for the family was expected by the Quran. Islam itself was sighted as a family. In the peasants family life the women cooked for the family and mostly the men worked. Jewish women contributed in local commerce and in overseas trade and travel. In many families the wife became the family’s breadwinner so her husband could study.

Family names were originated from the father. Men in the family who married a higher class then him took on the wife’s last name. A common family name was “Ibn al-Hajja” which in English means son of the woman pilgrim. Daughters inherited their father’s inheritance if there were no sons to take over it. If there were no sons the son took over the father’s name and inheritance

Citations:

English, Edward D. "the family during the Middle Ages." Encyclopedia of the Medieval World, vol. 1. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2005. Ancient and Medieval History Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?
ItemID=WE49&iPin=EMW0498&SingleRecord=True (accessed November 3, 2010).

Cosman, Madeleine Pelner, and Linda Gale Jones. "society in the Middle Ages." Handbook to Life in the Medieval World. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2008. Ancient and Medieval History Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?
ItemID=WE49&iPin=HBLMW02&SingleRecord=True (accessed November 4, 2010).


Diamond Daniel and Katelyn Krupa