3. INTERGENERATIONAL AMBIVALENCES IN THE PAST – A SOCIAL-HISTORICAL ASSESSMENT

Detecting and describing intergenerational ambivalence in historical populations is a challenge because historians are dependent, for the most part, upon the evidence that has survived, rather than on evidence elicited by researchers from participants. In this respect, the distant past is more problematic than the recent past, of course; and studies of recent (but past) generations have been able successfully to integrate documentary, statistical, and interview material (Hareven, 1982; Macfarlane, 1977). Still, such studies cover only a short stretch of past time. The purpose of this essay is to review research on family history dealing with the past three or four centuries in order to see how the subject of intergenerational ambivalence has been dealt with, if at all, and how it might need to be incorporated into historical thinking when certain kinds of situations come under scrutiny.