Ties That Bind

The family is a major area of scholarly research and public debate. Many studies have explored the English family in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries focusing on husbands and wives parents and children. <em>The Ties that Bind</em> explores in depth the other key dimension: the place of brothers and sisters in family life and in society. <p/>Moralists urged mutual love and support between siblings but recognized that sibling rivalry was a common and potent force. The widespread practice of primogeniture made England distinctive. The eldest son inherited most of the estate and with it a moral obligation to advance the welfare of his brothers and sisters. <em>The Ties that Bind</em> explores how this operated in practice and shows how the resentment of younger brothers and sisters made sibling relationships a heated issue in this period in family life in print and also on the stage.<br>