ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book attempts to survey a subject and a period which have recently given rise to lively controversy. It deals briefly with the evidence which historians of the family during this period have used, and touch on some of the approaches they have followed. Isolate certain enduring features of English family life and the most important forces of change. It focuses on the relations between the elementary family and kinsfolk outside it, and upon certain major phases in the family life cycle. The historian of the family can draw on a rich variety of sources. But these sources present him with considerable problems of balance and interpretation, for they are uneven in both their social and their temporal coverage. The study of the history of individual families, particularly by means of genealogical investigation, long antedated the idea of writing a history of 'the family'.
