ABSTRACT
In early modern Europe, raising one’s children well was not simply a private matter; it played an important part in maintaining societal order. Consequently, numerous means to discipline one’s offspring were justified. The prescribed punishments did not allow unnecessary cruelty, however, and Christian ways of teaching were emphasised. Parents had a duty to raise their children to become respectable adults, although the ideals of the ‘good’ man and woman were based on gendered expectations. Nevertheless, the boundaries of excessive and acceptable chastisement were often disputed. Based on this conflict, the chapter discusses ideal parenting in the context of familial advice books—a pan-European literary genre—and the views expressed in such works on disciplinary correction during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in both Protestant and Catholic cultures.
