ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book explores how the close-kin marriage scenarios were possible or desirable within a stepfamily or to create a stepfamily. It discusses a relative or in-law as a step-parent even if it meant seeking dispensation for the marriage, among other reasons, because of the expectation that a close-kin step-parent would be more loving than a 'stranger'. The book describes the 1442 Swedish law to deter stepfathers from co-sleeping with an infant in case the child was suffocated in the night. It argues that under English law and the rules of coverture, children had more to fear from fathers and stepfathers than from stepmothers, given the extraordinary authority and power over property that husbands enjoyed. The book also explores precisely repeated type of marriage between a stepbrother and stepsister, arranged when the aspriring aristocratic widower Esterhazy married a young and wealthy widow.
