Today, I’ll again blend history and fiction, sharing my thoughts about how the typical family looked like in the past and today and how that ties to fiction (especially fantasy).

My thoughts on this topic started through politics – with parties across Europe claiming to be “protecting the traditional family” mostly as their main reason to be against same-sex marriages. I’ll not delve into why this is a pitiful excuse. But, at some point, I saw some articles that proved that the “traditional family” they claim to protect is (typically consisting of mother, father, and 1-3 children) in fact, quite a new thing.

As far as I know – in the more rural areas of Europe, this “traditional family” only started being common in the 20th century, sometimes only after WWII. My great-grandfather, born in the early 1900s, was one of 7 children – despite living in the suburbs. The family still had a large amount of livestock and grew a major part of their fruits and vegetables themselves.

If we look deeper in the past, to the medieval times, most families had several children partially because people died young. Lack of healthcare meant a high risk of people dying before they reached adulthood. In those times, the typical family had a very different dynamic, especially when it came to men. The oldest son typically inherited the family’s possessions. If the father was a craftsman, then the eldest son was expected to take over the business.

When it came to other sons, their fate was much less optimistic. The further sons were often forbidden from relationships so they wouldn’t limit the oldest son’s options. Their future opened only a handful of paths. Many simply became mere farmhands in their own families. Those who wanted a different path could try becoming journeymen in a craft. Some would choose to become monks – a life that provided education but wasn’t without risks – thieves and raiders didn’t shy away from attacking monasteries in search of loot.

Which leads to the final option – to take up arms and seek a life of violence. Whether in the Kings’ armies, as mercenaries, or outlaws. As I’ve heard during a castle tour, mercenaries were often parts of armies – not exactly a surprising fact as this saved the monarchies from having to secure equipment for everyone. And their lifespan wasn’t as short as one might believe – many major revolts were led by experienced mercenary leaders. Also, battles were rarely fought to total annihilation – it takes time to train experienced soldiers, and their loss to wounds or infection was hard to replace. The estimate I’ve heard during one of the tours was that casualties around 10-15% were enough to retreat, aside from some extremely one-sided battles.

A shift towards families as most western people know them today only began with industrialization in the 19th century, and that was still only limited to people living in the growing cities. Without farms to take care of, the need for having more children that would help with the work and improvements in healthcare (at that point, mostly limited to towns) the need for having more children was receding. This was probably true to some degree to the urban populace even earlier to some degree, however, plagues and wars didn’t avoid the towns so it’s likely urban population in earlier ages had more children than today (even if fewer than the rural populace).

However, until agricultural mechanization and artificial fertilizers became a thing, this change didn’t happen in the more rural areas. Even as widespread education eventually became common, school breaks were timed to align with times of planting and harvest which still needed a lot of manpower in a short time, with minor breaks in the time of religious holidays.

Now, to connect it to fiction – fantasy often draws from medieval settings and the family dynamics reflect that to a degree. Typically, there are major differences between rural areas and the major towns, often displayed in the story when a main character of rural origin first steps into a town as a part of his journey – now seeing a different way of life.

Before public education, most opportunities to learn were either through the army or the church, which is also often reflected in the form of various martial or religious orders featured in fantasy stories, especially those focusing on coming-of-age elements.

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I’ll close things off here. Sometimes, it might be strange to see how things we consider common and normal are, in fact, relatively new developments.