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Structure and relationships in stepfamilies in early twentieth-century Britain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2009

Natasha Burchardt
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Continuity and Change , Volume 4 , Special Issue 2: SPECIAL ISSUE: THE CHILD IN HISTORY , August 1989 , pp. 293 - 322
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

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References

ENDNOTES

1 Visher, Emily B. and Visher, John S., ‘Children in stepfamilies’, Psychiatrie Annals, 12, 9 (1982) 832–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Between 1971 and 1980, the parents of 1.3 million children under 16 in Britain divorced. Kathleen E. Kiernan, ‘The structure of families today: Continuity or change?’ OPCS Occasional Paper 31 The Family (1983). Eighty per cent of all those who remarry under the age of 30 remarry within five years. Family Policy Studies Centre, Divorce: 1983 matrimonial and family proceedings bill, briefing paper (London, 1983).Google Scholar One in three marriages today involves remarriage for at least one partner and one in six for both partners. Rimmer, L., ‘Families in Focus: Marriage, Divorce and Family Patterns,’ Study Commission on the Family (London, 1980).Google Scholar

3 Robinson, Margaret, ‘Stepfamilies: a reconstituted family system’, Journal of Family Therapy 2 (1980) 45–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 See, for example, Wallerstein, Judith and Kelly, Joan Berlin, Surviving the breakup (London, 1980).Google ScholarBowerman, Charles E. and Irish, Donald P., ‘Some relationships of stepchildren to their parents’, Marriage and Family Living 24 (1962) 113–21.CrossRefGoogle ScholarHetherington, E. M., Cox, M. and Cox, R., ‘Family interaction and the social, emotional and cognitive development of children following divorce’, in Chess, S. and Thomas, A. (eds.), Annual progress in child psychiatry and child development (New York, 1980).Google ScholarDuberman, Lucille, The reconstituted family (Chicago, 1975).Google Scholar

5 For example, Hodder, Elizabeth, The step-parents' handbook (London, 1985)Google Scholar; Inglis, Ruth, The good step-parent's guide (London, 1986).Google Scholar

6 Mitchell, Ann K., Children in the middle: living through divorce (London, 1985).Google Scholar

7 Walczak, Yvette with Burns, Sheila, Divorce: the child's point of view (London, 1984)Google Scholar; McCredie, Gillian and Horrox, Alan, Voices in the dark: children and divorce (London, 1985).Google Scholar

8 Burgoyne, Jacqueline and Clark, David, Making a go of it: a study of stepfamilies in Sheffield (London, 1984).Google Scholar

9 Ferri, Elsa, Stepchildren: a national study (London, 1984).Google Scholar This is based on information collected for the National Child Development Study, a long-term research project conducted by the National Children's Bureau into the development of all children born in one week in 1958. Follow-up studies have been carried out when the children were 7, 11, 16 and 23. Also the National Child Health and Education Study, University of Bristol, has surveyed at intervals 15,000 children in Britain born during one week in 1970.

10 Anderson, Michael, ‘What is new about the modern family: an historical perspective’Google Scholar OPCS occasional Paper 31 The Family (1983) 5.

11 Laslett, Peter, Family Life and illicit love in earlier generations (Cambridge, 1977) 166–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Houlbrooke, Ralph A., The English family 1450–1700 (London, 1984) 215.Google Scholar

12 Menefee, Samuel Pyeatt, Wives for sale', an ethnographic study of British popular divorce (Oxford, 1981).Google Scholar

13 Phillips, Roderick, Family breakdown in late 18th century France: divorce in Rouen 1792–1803 (Oxford, 1980) 121–2.Google Scholar See also Lantz, Herman R., Marital incompatibility and social change in early America (London, 1976)Google Scholar; Farber, Bernard, Guardians of virtue: Salem families in 1800 (New York, 1972) 138–51Google Scholar; Lottin, Alain, La désunion du couple sous l'ancien régime: l'exemple du nord (Lille, 1975) 126.Google Scholar

14 Flandrin, J., Families in Former Times (London, 1959) 40–3.Google Scholar

15 Houlbrooke, , The English family, 211.Google Scholar

16 Stone, Lawrence, Family, sex and marriage in England, 1600–1800 (London, 1977).Google Scholar

17 His eldest son, John, Lord Amberley, married Kate Stanley. For a full discussion of the transmission of family patterns, see Lieberman, S., Transgenerational family therapy (London, 1983).Google Scholar

18 Cecil, Lord David, The young Melbourne (London, 1939) 10–11.Google Scholar

19 Semi-structured interviews with a quote sample of 444 men and women born between 1872 and 1906 were recorded in the early 1970s. The sample was based on the 1911 census, and the proportion of men and women interviewed, their geographical distribution and occupational class were as closely as possible representative of the population of England, Scotland and Wales at that time. See Thompson, Paul, The Edwardians (London, 1975).Google Scholar Among those interviewed, nearly 100 – almost a quarter of the sample – had not grown up in intact families. The majority of these had experienced the death of a parent during childhood, in some cases both parents; at least 14 had parents who had separated; and more than 30 others had at some time been separated from one or more siblings or from their parents, or-had lived with relatives or in institutions.

20 See Appendix and Tables 1–3.

21 Interview 217, Family Life and Work Experience Collection, Oral History Archive, University of Essex. All the interviews cited hereafter are from this archive.

22 Interview 195.

23 About one in eight children born at the turn of the century was destined to die in the first year of life, and approximately a quarter of those born died before the age of ten. See Anderson, , ‘What is new’Google Scholar; Thompson, , The Edwardians, 10.Google Scholar

24 Interview 224.

25 Interview 428.

26 Remarriage at any age has always been easier for men than women; widowers – like divorced men today – marrying over a wider age-range than women. See Dupaquier, J., Helin, E., Laslett, P., Livi-Bacci, M. and Sogner, S., eds, Marriage and remarriage in populations of the past (London, 1981)Google Scholar especially Drake, Graunt and Lofgren, Corsini.

27 Interview 249.

28 Single-mother families remain the poorest today. See Marsden, Dennis, Mothers alone: poverty and the fatherless family (London, 1969).Google Scholar The National Child Development Study showed that 19% of children with single fathers and 45% of children with single mothers were receiving free school meals at the age of 16, in contrast to 6% living with both natural parents, 9% with stepmothers and 15% with stepfathers: Ferri, , Stepchildren, 36–7.Google Scholar

29 Interview 417.

30 Interview 241.

31 Interview 195.

32 Interview 217.

33 Attitudes to stepparents were as follows: Stepfathers: four men and three women positive; one man and four women negative. Stepmothers', three men and three women positive; one man and five women negative. Five stepfathers but no stepmothers were ignored in the life-story.

34 Interview 417.

35 Interview 366.

36 Interview 217.

37 Interview 249.

38 Interview 217.

39 Bowerman, and Irish, , ‘Some relationships’.Google Scholar

40 Interview 87.

41 Interview 349.

42 Interview 88.

43 Interview 249.

44 Interview 428.

45 Interview 226.

46 Interview 417.

47 Interview 50.

48 Interview 275.

49 Interview 103.

50 Interview 275.

51 Interview 407.

52 Interview 66.

53 Interview 227.

54 Interview 187.

55 Interview 364.

56 Interview 195.

57 Interview 187.

58 Interview 217.

59 Interview 275.

60 Interview 363.

61 Houlbrooke, , The English family.Google Scholar

62 Dunn, Judy, ‘Sibling relationships in early childhood’ Child Development 54 (1983) 787–811.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

63 Interview 195.

64 Interview 428.

65 Interview 217.

66 Interview 249.

67 Interview 69.

68 Interview 196.

69 Interview 364.

70 Interview 363.

71 Interview 92.

72 Interview 405.

73 Interview 430.

74 Interview 211.

75 Mitchell, , Children in the middle.Google Scholar

76 Bohannan, Paul J., Stepfathers and the mental health of their children (1975)Google Scholar, Report to Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Washington, D. C.

77 Burgoyne, and Clark, , Making a go of it.Google Scholar

78 Interview 92.

79 Interview 363.

80 Interview 217.

81 Visher, Emily B. and Visher, John S., Stepfamilies (New York, 1979).Google Scholar They are careful to point out that their clients are all white, middle-class American, whose family styles cannot be assumed to be representative of others.

82 Burgoyne, and Clark, , Making a go of it.Google Scholar

83 Ahrons, Constance R., ‘The binuclear family: an emerging lifestyle for post-divorce families’ (1981)Google Scholar, XlXth International Seminar on Divorce and Remarriage, Belgium.

84 Maidment, S., ‘Stepparents and stepchildren: legal relationships in serial unions’, in Eekelaar, J. E. and Katz, S. eds., Marriage and cohabitation in contemporary societies (Toronto, 1980) 420–436.Google Scholar

85 Ferri, Elsa, Stepchildren, 34–45.Google Scholar

86 Royal commission of divorce and matrimonial causes, Parliamentary Papers, 1912–13, XX, Appendix XI, Ancoates Cases.

87 Burgoyne, and Clark, , Making a go of it.Google Scholar

88 Interview 217.

89 Interview 227.

90 Mitchell, Ann, Children in the middle.Google Scholar