Family and Household

Several influential studies have argued that a distinctive marriage and family pattern, characterized by a prevalence of complex households and an early age at marriage for women, can be detected in the Mediterranean from Antiquity to the twentieth century. However, other studies have shown that this pattern was not universal and have warned against the risk of inferring continuity when similar family forms are attested in the same place at two different points in time. Indeed, well-documented cases such as the one of Egypt bring to light both social variability and historical change within a single setting. Historical and ethnographic investigations also reveal that formal similarities may conceal marked differences in relational dynamics within the household. Moreover, while family was, and still is, an all-important welfare agency in the Mediterranean area, co-residence in complex households should not be seen as the only way of supporting elderly and needy people.