HI125 Study Guide - Final Guide: Truancy, Peer Pressure, Compulsory Education
Document Summary
12/5/2013 9:51:00 am: assess the changing legal status of married men and fathers over the years 1867 to 1969. Father s custody of children: until the nineteenth century, children were regarded as property. Men controlled business affairs, politics, domestic economy, a family"s property holdings and the decisions as to how children were to be raised, educated or sent to domestic service or apprenticed in a trade. Women s earnings could also be claimed by spouse. Late victorian social conventions created separate spheres of influence and social respectability for males and females. With industrialization/urbanization = came dramatic changes in the nature of the family. As the patriarchal heads of the family- fathers were deemed entitled to persons/services of their offspring. Until late 19th c. mothers only obtained custody only where fathers had serious defects of character. Suggests an overall preference for a patriarchal structured family unit. Agents of the law, and the laws as written, intruded on domesticity and family formation.
