1st Edition
Family Fictions and Family Facts Harriet Martineau, Adolphe Quetelet and the Population Question in England 1798-1859
Classical political economy rests on the assumption that the market and the family are overlapping and mutually dependent realms, dominated in turn by economic men and domestic women. Here, Brian Cooper explores the role of economic theory in 'normalizing' the family in the first half of the nineteenth century.
Drawing on a wide range of sources - novels, books on etiquette and statistical sources, as well as works of economics - the book examines the impacts of these different forms on contemporary debate and will be of interest to historians of economic thought, feminist economics and those interested in rhetoric and economics.
1. Classification Comes Home to the Family 2. Family and the Domestication of Passions 2. Family, the Manners of the People, and Political Economy 3. Harriet Martineau’s 'Embodied Principles' of Political Economy: Whose Bodies, What Principles? 4. There is no Place for Such a Family 5. What is to be Deemed a Family? 5. However You Define Family
Biography
Brian Cooper
"This insightful and well-written book uses literay theory and ideas from the history of science to survey the representation of family in a range of texts including travel literature, novels, educational treatises, books of conduct, parliamentary papers and statistical accounts." -- Evelyn L. Forget, EH.NET, January 2008
