1) Marriage and Family
2) Children and Literacy
3) Diet and Medicine
4) Religion and Leisure

• nuclear family predominant
• later marriages (economic arrangement)
• pregnancy led to marriage

• illegitimate births soared
• marriages at earlier ages (romantic reasons)
• growth of cottage industry--> jobs not tied to the land
• growing population--> urbanization (particularly in England)

• extremely high infant & child mortality---> little emotional attachment
• infanticide and foundlings---> severe poverty
• indifference toward children (all classes)---> treated as small adults
• strict physical discipline and abuse ("Spare the Rod, Spoil the Child")
  

• slowly changing attitudes
• growing support for foundling homes/orphanages
• more comfortable clothing--> end to swaddling babies
• growth of humanitarianism & charity---> belief in progress
  

• wide national and regional variations--> gradual increase over century
• peasants and workers read:
  • religion--> Bibles, inspirational works
  • entertainment--> fairy tales, novels
  • practical--> how-to guides, almanacs
• works did not challenge the established order (Church or State)
• reinforced traditional values

• lower classes: peasants
  • bread --> wheat, rye
  • vegetables --> peas, beans, cabbage, carrots
  • dairy products --> cheese, butter, whey
  • very little meat or eggs
• 'middling classes':merchants, craftsmen, artisans
  • bread & beans the bulk of diet
  • more varied diet than peasants
• wealthy classes
  • much more meat--> chicken, beef, lamb, fish
  • very few vegetables--> danger of scurvy
  • beer, wine, hard liquor--> overdrinking

• all diets becoming more varied---> more meat
• new foods being introduced---> potato
• greater variety of vegetables
• white bread--> refined flour, growing consumption of sugar

• rise in numbers of practitioners
• very little standardization or regulation --> quackery
• very little medical knowledge could do --> all levels
  • faith healers--> rural poor
  • apothecaries/pharmacists--> herbs, drugs
  • surgeons/barbers
  • college-trained physicians--> wealthy elites

• imbalance in the body --> humours, tensions
• bad odors (noxious miasmas)
• predisposition of individual
• common cures included bloodletting, purging, cupping, medicinal plants

• medicine becoming more practical, experimental--> Edward Jenner (smallpox)
• still very little medical practitioners could do for most ailments

• educated elite critical of religion
• attacked religious practices
• deemed foolish & superstitious
• masses of people still committed to Christianity
• especially rural areas
• religion embedded in local traditions & customs
  • Protestant Revival--> Methodism (1730s+)
  • Catholic Piety

• Carnival--> Mardi Gras
• Urban fairs--> freak shows, acrobats, open-air dramas
• Commercial spectator sports--> bullfighting, horse races, boxing matches, traveling circuses, cockfighting, bullbaiting
• educated elite critical of these activities -->led to frivolity, sin, disorder, superstition

Growing divisions (social, intellectual, religious, economic) between peasantry and the educated enlightened elites.