Family Life
Islamic Empire: Religious Text, Women Sura
This Sura (or chapter) of the Qur’an, known as al-Nisa’, or “Women,” details a variety of legal rights and restrictions for Muslims in the realm of marriage, inheritance, and other male-female relationships.
Bhakti Poets: Poem, Bahinabai 2
Bhakti poets—who were in some cases lower-caste Hindu women—and their audiences drew emotional sustenance from these verses, which expressed a pure devotion to Hindu deities.
"I Must Of Course Have Something Of My Own Before Many More Years Have Passed Over My Head": Sally Rice Leaves the Farm
From the rocky soil of Vermont's hill towns, many young men and women in the 19th century went looking for new opportunities. Often they made a series of moves between farm, factory, and city.
Hadith on Parents’ Grieving upon the Death of Children
The quotations below relate normative examples of parents' behavior upon the death of a child. In the first hadith, or narrative from the life of Muhammad, Prophet of Islam, Aisha, wife of Muhammad, asks about the salvation of those who have suffered the death of one or more children.
Ferreyra Sons v. Pedro Sueldo
After the Rosas regime ended in 1852, hundreds of families throughout Argentina hoped to make claims on property and wealth that had been taken away from them during the Rosas years. However, many heads of these families were elderly or deceased.
How the Aztec (Nahua) Raised Sons as Warriors
Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún recorded this text in the mid-16th century as part of an effort to gather information about native Aztec history and customs. Sahagún went to Mexico in 1529 as one of the first missionaries assigned to the newly conquered territory of New Spain.
Advice of an Aztec Father to His Sons
Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún recorded this text in the mid-16th century as part of an effort to gather information about native Aztec history and customs. Sahagún went to Mexico in 1529 as one of the first missionaries assigned to the newly conquered territory of New Spain.
Orphan Records, Early Modern France
Much of early modern Europe saw increasing numbers of abandoned children, and new institutions designed to care for them. Published notarial documents, such as the two excerpted here, allow a glimpse into the fortunes of individual orphaned children in early modern Europe.
Request: Playden Onely to the Royal African Company, 1721
This excerpt is of a request made by Playden Onely to the members of the Royal African Company in 1721 for 130 children to be taken from West Africa to the West Indies for sale as slaves. The RAC commissioned the slave ship Kent for the task, and the operation was a success.
Hymn for the Festival of Marriage
Although festivals drew much smaller audiences during the final years of the Revolution, the government continued to celebrate them. Now, however, they tended to commemorate apolitical events: thus a festival, and hymn, devoted to the subject of marriage.