To understand a person, or a people, it helps to know what
childhood was like for them and how family relationships were
formed. According to Lawrence Stone, author of The Family, Sex,
and Marriage in England, 1500-1800 (1977), 16th-century English
family relationships tended to be weak, that is, relationships
bound by genuine love and affection were weak. The social group
of most importance was the extended family, the community.
Personal relationships were submerged in this wider group to an
extent we see today only in a few isolated communities like the
Amish or the Hasidim. That these communities could be spread
over a wide geographic area, particularly on the higher levels,
that, considering the difficulties of travel then, relatives
might go years without meeting, adds to the picture of a
collection of emotionally cool relationships, connected by blood
and self interest but little else. If the Elizabethans were a
hardy lot, withstanding the plague, malaria, wars, duels, the
little Ice Age, and a diet th