A World of Their Own Making: Myth, Ritual, and the Quest for Family Values [Paperback]

John R. Gillis (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0674961889 | ISBN-13: 978-0674961883 | Publication Date: October 15, 1997

Weddings, birthdays, funerals, reunions, Mother's Day, even Christmas, we think of these ritual events as timeless traditions, our links to the distant past and the future. John Gillis aims to reveal just how modern and how politically constructed these rituals are. Our whole society may be obsessed with family values, but as John Gillis points out in this book, most of our images of home-sweet-home are of very recent vintage. The book questions our idealized notion of "the family" a mind-set in which myth and symbol still hold sway. As the families we live with become more fragile, the symbolic families we live by become more powerful. Yet it is only by accepting the notion that our ritual, myths, and images must be open to perpetual revision that we can satisfy our human needs and changing circumstances. The book uses both recent and historical literature on Western family life from the Middle Ages to the present.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

When Dan Quayle chastised the sitcom Murphy Brown for flouting traditional family values by having its lead give birth out of wedlock, he had a point: television had moved beyond the Nelsons to the new world of the Simpsons. That shift, along with other harbingers of social change, allowed both Democrats and Republicans to deploy apocalyptic visions of family decline and social disorder. (A factoid: premarital pregnancy rates have never fallen below 10 percent throughout our history.) In this lively reading of American social history, Gillis shows us that the good old days were never really all that good and that while family values are not in danger, it won't keep many of us from yearning for a fabulous golden age when kids minded their elders and all was right with the world. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews

A thoughtful debunking of the American family's mythic past. Gillis (History/Rutgers Univ.) quite ably proves that, contrary to popular opinion, there never has been a ``Golden Age'' of family values. Each generation has reacted to its own crises, Gillis argues, by idealizing the family life of previous generations; today's innovation is the belief that every 1950s family was as impeccable as the Cleavers. In the '50s, parents turned for guidance to the Depression-era generation, who in their day had clung to the Victorians as exemplars. The greatest strength of the book is the author's systematic demonstration that the rituals we now attach to the elusive phrase ``family values'' are quite recent, most dating to the Victorian era. Before the 19th century, families did not need to create time to spend together. They had no choice but to sleep, work, and eat together in their small communal space. By the 1850s such forced mutuality had been displaced by a market economy, in which fathers left the home to work, mothers became the guardians of the hearth, and children were transformed from miniature adults into idealized angels. With these new roles came important supplementary rituals. Weddings, which had previously been simple events, had by the turn of the century become lavish family celebrations. The two-day weekend was created to promote the Victorian ideal of intentional family togetherness, as was the family meal, especially Sunday dinner. Holidays such as Christmas were transformed into family-centered and commercial enterprises. Gillis's work is well researched, the topic stimulating. Gillis writes with an easy, contemporary style, although his familiarity with the reader can be a bit jarring (he refers to early Europeans as ``our ancestors,'' presuming that his audience is entirely Euro-American). In all, though, a useful contribution to the history of the family, accessible to general readers. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press (October 15, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674961889
• ISBN-13: 978-0674961883
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #996,487 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Social construction of family images, March 21, 2000

By 

Courtney Reese (New Jersey) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A World of Their Own Making: Myth, Ritual, and the Quest for Family Values (Paperback)

I really enjoyed this book by Gillis. I particulary found the idea of, the family we live by versus the family we live with, interesting. I used this book to write a research paper on the social construction of family photographs. Are the images the photograph imply real? Is it an image the family has constructed on purpose? Gillis has made a lot of intersting points in this book and everyone should read it.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant synthesis., May 17, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: A World of Their Own Making: Myth, Ritual, and the Quest for Family Values (Paperback)

This thoughtful and orginal book is well written and fascinating. It incorporates a wide historiography into a brief and cogent synthesis while making its main points. Whether you are a scholar of the history of the family, a student writing a research paper or just someone interested in interogating your own family myths, this book would be very useful.

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, at times an effort to keep going, August 22, 2010

By 

slw (Boston, MA, United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: A World of Their Own Making: Myth, Ritual, and the Quest for Family Values (Paperback)

This book often reads like a textbook and goes into a great deal of detail, which can be trying, and I found myself skipping entire sections by the time I got to the last few chapters. Meanwhile, the author seems to be pulling together information from so many sources that he can't feasibly explain throughout his writing where his statements are coming from -- instead, they're simply stated and endnoted, which left me repeatedly skeptical of how solidly he had founded his theories, or even what could be counted as theory vs. fact. Then again, I find myself repeatedly referencing information that I learned in this book in my everyday life, since it does very clearly make the point that our conceptions of what family *should* be are startlingly recent constructions, as are our conceptions of what family *used* to be. I'm not entirely convinced, though, that it successfully synthesizes all of this research into the grand theory that I think the author's striving for. Either way, though, the book is eye-opening.

A nifty aside: in reading the book on the train platform, the picture of Santa Claus on the cover caused a boy in a stroller next to me to spontaneously start singing Christmas carols in the middle of May. I'm pretty sure his mom had no idea what was going on.