Download or read book Marriage and the Family in the Middle Ages written by Frances Gies and published by HarperCollins Publishers. This book was released on 1987 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Historians have only recently awakened to the importance of the family, the basic social unit throughout human history. This book traces the development of marriage and the family from the Middle Ages to the early modern era. It describes how the Roman and barbarian cultural streams merged under the influence of the Christian church to forge new concepts, customs, laws, and practices. Century by century it follows the development -- sometimes gradual, at other times revolutionary -- of significant elements in the history of the family Book jacket.