ABSTRACT
It is true that people and nations and cultures vary in the extent to which they wish to understand themselves in time in this way, but to claim that there has ever been a generation anywhere with no sense of history is to go too far. Historical knowledge then, and the activity of the historian, need no apology. Without such knowledge people could not understand themselves in contrast with their ancestors, and possessing it people also satisfy a spontaneous interest in the world around them and in the people who have been within it. The phrase 'sociological history' has been occasionally used here as its title, but it might almost be better to use 'Social structural history' instead. The evidence about the household as it was in England before the industrial process began has been referred to on various occasions throughout this chapter, though not presented in a systematic way.
