Book dossier

Reproductive rituals

by Angus McLaren

The history of the family and of family size and structure in pre-industrial England has attracted a great deal of research, much concerned with fertility and morality levels. There has been an assumption that fertility during the period was uncontrolled, but in this persuasive and perceptive study Angus McLaren shows both from anthropological research and form an impressive review of contemporary literature that conscious family limitation must have been practiced before the nineteenth century.