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Documents - Family and Gender
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1.   The General Law Code for the Prussian States, Part II.2: "Of the Mutual Rights and Obligations of Parents and Children" (1794)
When it came to parent-child relations and other subjects, the 1794 General Law Code for the Prussian States was a mixture of description and prescription – description of current practices and prescription....
2.   "Medical Advice on the Bodily and Mental Health of Children" (1794)
Bernhard Christian Faust, a court physician in the principality of Schaumburg-Lippe, adopted the familiar literary form of the Christian catechism for his widely read proclamation of Enlightenment....
3.   On Child Rearing in the Villages of the Southern German Principality of Ansbach (1787)
This text offers a plausible description of village conditions, but its method of interpretation betrays the tendency of Enlightenment moralists to deplore the apparent “disorder” and “irrationality”....
4.   A Protestant Pastor on Courtship and Marriage among Propertied Farmers and Tenant Farmers in Westphalia (1786)
This text describes a region in which relatively prosperous landed farmers leased cottagers’ plots to families who supplied necessary seasonal agricultural labor and otherwise occupied themselves....
5.   "The Education of the Countryman in Lippe" (1789)
This text offers an odd combination of description (of the lives of youthful and adolescent villagers, especially those not destined to inherit a family farm) and prescription (particularly of normative....
6.   Westphalian Nobleman Christian Franz Dietrich von Fürstenberg Provides Instructions on the Education of his Daughters (1743)
This text attests to one father’s apprehensions, which were doubtless shared by other aristocratic parents of his time. The author of this text, a Westphalian nobleman, wanted to ensure that his....
7.   Westphalian Nobleman Clemens August Droste zu Vischering Provides Instructions on the Duties of his Children's Tutor (1776)
Children in upper-class households were entrusted to the care of servants and tutors, whose own behavior and manners often did not conform to aristocratic standards. Here, the nobleman Clemens August....
8.   The Childhood and Youth of a Prussian Nobleman in the Late 18th Century. From the Memoirs of Friedrich August Ludwig von der Marwitz (Retrospective Account)
Friedrich August Ludwig von der Marwitz (1777-1837) gained fame as a soldier in the years 1806-1815. During that same period, he also emerged as a leader of the conservative opposition, centered....
9.   A Noblewoman from Schleswig-Holstein Reflects on her Idyllic Childhood in the Late 18th Century (Retrospective Account)
Despite illnesses and untimely deaths in her family, Countess von Bernstorff’s picture of her childhood and familial surroundings radiates contentment, comfort, and love. The social breadth of her....
10.   Childhood in Rostock, on the Baltic Coast, as seen through the Lens of the Enlightenment and Rationalist Medical Science (1807)
This vivid picture of health conditions and material life among the common people of Rostock reflects close observation and a strong commitment to social progress. Yet the author, A.F. Nolde, could....
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