Indhold: Introduction: Investigating the medieval family ; The late Roman family and transition to the Middle Ages ; The family in the medieval West ; The family in the Byzantine East ; The family in the Islamic world ; The Jewish family in the Middle Ages ; The physical environment of the medieval family ; Grooms and brides, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers ; Children and the family ; Religion and the family ; Families, labor, and the laboring family ; The family as rhetorical device : traditional, transitional, and non-traditional families