The Importance Of Families Prior To The Industrial Revolution

dedicated farm women. They took care of all of the food, clothing and just about anything else

Households were strictly patriarchal in which the man of the house made all the important decisions. Women's jobs at the time were mostly relegated to domestic service and occasional work at harvest time. The jobs were always of low pay, low status, and required little training. In addition to this females were not legally permitted to inherit land or property. This was the bleak life of a woman, with little hope or power, and always the subordinate of men.

As concerns about the welfare of children rose in the mid-1800s, Parliament (the English government legislature) held investigations to find out the conditions of children workers. Below is an interview between a parliamentary investigator

“Most girls were trained from childhood for the traditional roles of wife, mother, and housekeeper. They learned how to grind grain, how to cook and make beverages, especially beer, and how to spin and weave cloth for clothing. If a woman worked outside of her home, her job usually grew out of her household

Each day, the men left for work in the morning, and returned in the evening, the women took care of things around the house, and children would either help their parents, depending on the father's job, play, or attend school. On Sundays, most people would gather at church. Occasionally, parties and other gatherings would draw people together for a time of fun and enjoyment. For the most part, this is how life went. Some women were allowed to work, but most were stuck at home and unable to get a job.

Then in society, men were portrayed as “dominant figures” and women were the “nurturers”. Men not only filled the fatherly role but they also usually earned the “breadwinning”, went to work all day, and financially provided for the wives and

The men and the older boys did most of the farm work. They also did most of the hunting and fishing. The women and older girls made family clothes and prepare the meals.

People often lived and worked in family unit, presenting everything by their own hand. Porter (1999) points out that around 75% British lived in the village, and most people ensure their life by farming. As a result of the Industrial Revolution, this situation no longer continued. The new law required that all owner’s of gazing grounds must afford the expense for fence, which lead to many farmers go bankrupt, at the meantime, many hand weavers unemployed because the new machines capability of produce big amount outputs (Stearns, 1998). Consequently, it forced many people find jobs in new factories, and moved to cities where the factory located (Porter, 1999). It is also important to state that although they worked for long hours, they only get paid little money. As they could not afford the higher living expenses in big cities, they had to move into the slum house. It is necessary to point out that over 12,000 people lived in 1,400 houses, nearly one family shared per room (included about nine people at average) (Engles, 1968: 62). This lead to several distress like air pollution, typhoid and cholera to threaten people’s lives (Stearns, 1998). Dean (1983: 104) also describes that the living conditions were fearful, in the course of early year of Industrial Revolution, over half of children aged under five years old dead because of the infectious

In the early years of my grandparents’ growing families, both my grandmothers stayed home as homemakers to take care of their children while my grandfathers worked on the farm. I noticed that later, both my grandmothers began to work outside of the home to contribute to the financial needs of the family. The change in their work can be attributed to the both the social and economic changes that took place (Niles & Harris-Bowlsbey, 2013). Since then, the women in my family have worked full-time, including myself. The men in the family have done work in business since both my grandfathers did so. My father and my brothers have definitely followed their example in that

no say in anything and were only allowed to stay at home. Women had to

Women gathered food in groups; they had their own societies for ceremonial activity. They raised their children together until the children were about six or seven, at which point boys generally were sent to spend time with male relatives to be taught their roles in life. Girls remained with their mothers, learning the roles that they would eventually endeavor (Finch 44).

The Industrial Revolution set people away from farms and small villages and moved them to cities and towns because of the job opportunities that arose in the cities. The Industrial Revolution not only helped people move along in the late 1700s and early 1800s but also it has made the people what they are today. During the Industrial Revolution, the movement from an agrarian society to an industrial one reshaped the roles of families, widen the gap between classes, and led to the developments in communication, transportation, and other scientific fields that completely changed humanity.

The era of pre-industrialization focused mainly on agricultural production which was carried out by men, allowing family households to become self-sustained and more relegated to domestic life in the home. The pre-industrial ways of life led to a type of familiar division of labor that left separate and independent spheres of control for both women and men. In the pre-industrial family life, the husband and wife had separate plots of lands, and separate crafts and trading enterprises whereby each spouse retained control over their own profits.

The Effects of Industrialisation on the Structure of the Family The pre- industrial family was said to be an extended family consisting of three generations, the children, parents and the grandparents. The family would all work together in the farms to help provide for the entire families needs, children as young a 5 or 6 would have been found work to do. However this was until the Industrial revolution when factories become the main source of work and development. The pre-industrial societies were largely based on extended kinship networks; land and other resources were commonly owned by a range of relatives that extended well beyond the unit of the nuclear family.

* More often work was performed at home and usually the productive process became a family affair. In it craftsman was a domestic worker.