Late-Life Historical Reflections of Philippe Ariès on the Family in Contemporary Culture

Philippe Ariès is renowned among social historians for Centuries of Childhood (1960), his pioneering study that set the course for research on the rise of the modern family as a newfield for historical inquiry. Also significant but less well known are his late-life writings (late 1970s, early 1980s) on the family in the present age. In this article, the author analyzes Ariès's reconsideration of his original thesis in light of his inquiry into three issues: the crisis of the contemporary family, with particular attention to the problem of adolescence; the changing cultural understanding of the relationship between love and marriage; and the historical emergence of the distinction between public and private life as a context for understanding long-range changes in the dynamics of family life.