Kinship in Britain and beyond from the early modern to the present: introduction

Abstract

Contemporary social and medical changes – such as the rising divorce rates and rates of subsequent remarriage, the introduction of new fertility techniques and rising longevity – trigger public debates about kinship, nature and culture. At the same time, ‘ the master narrative ’ telling how kinship declined in the course of modernization has been largely rejected by historians. Now, however, ‘ revisionist ’ arguments emphasizing longterm continuities in kinship and family ties are also being questioned. It is an appropriate time, therefore, to address anew the question of kinship in Britain from the early modern to the present. This special issue of Continuity and Change emerged from discussions initially held at the Ellen McArthur workshop ‘Kinship in Britain and Beyond 500–2000’, held in Cambridge in 2005. The workshop was organized by Professor R. M. Smith and Dr Naomi Tadmor and was kindly supported by the British Academy, the Economic History Society and the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure. Four foci for investigation, highlighted at the original workshop, are examined here. The first concerns kinship and demography. The availability and the categories of kin most prevalent varied over time and among different social and age groups. The incidence of remarriage, changing marriage ages, generational lengths, and, more recently, lowered fertility, rising longevity, and the prevalence of divorce have also influenced kin availability. Some of the contributions in this volume specifically investigate the changing reservoirs of kin which people have been