Mayfield
Burbury Brummie
For those that are not aware, I was originally one of eleven children (eight surviving), and was brought up by a hard working father and a mother that firmly believed in old fashioned family ethics and principles.
As it was in many of the households of this era, the responsibility of the father was to go out to work and provide a living for his family; whereas the onus of the mother's duties related to looking after the house and family... With this in mind, you would therefore assume that the social ethos of the family structure would invoke a matriarchal system? Well to some degree this was correct but, the system also required that the dominant matriarch honoured her male counterpart with the respect of a pseudo-head... in other words my father thought himself the head? My mother (as others did) ruled by femine guile - how often did she use her charms to convince my patriarchal father that her way was really his idea... Everone had the place in life - a 'pecking order'. For this old fashioned family structure to work it insisted on a respect of status and authority, and this was strictly marshalled by both parents.
Now, this structed transcended to the children of the family... the girls and boys also had social differential status. Within my family; my sisters (as they approached adolescense) helped my mother around the house after school making the beds, washing, ironing, cleaning, etc, wheareas my brothers and I had part time jobs delivering papers or working as errand boys in the Jewellery Quarter (giving our mother a percentage of our wages). This system would not now be embraced as it necessitated that the girls of the household respected the elevated status of their sibling brothers by waiting on them (as my mother did for her husband)? I vividly remember my mother disciplining my sisters on several occasions for not responding to requests from their brothers for cups of tea and ironed shirts... This wasn't seen at that time as cruel or inappropriate; it was an expected and accepted way of life?
My parents were loving, caring yet strict - they both insisted that their children were respectful, polite and embraced the understanding that everyone, and everything had a place in life.
Did this old fashioned family structure make me an egotistical male chauvinistic pig - no I don't think so... Could it have done, I really don't think so - what is your opinion?
keith
As it was in many of the households of this era, the responsibility of the father was to go out to work and provide a living for his family; whereas the onus of the mother's duties related to looking after the house and family... With this in mind, you would therefore assume that the social ethos of the family structure would invoke a matriarchal system? Well to some degree this was correct but, the system also required that the dominant matriarch honoured her male counterpart with the respect of a pseudo-head... in other words my father thought himself the head? My mother (as others did) ruled by femine guile - how often did she use her charms to convince my patriarchal father that her way was really his idea... Everone had the place in life - a 'pecking order'. For this old fashioned family structure to work it insisted on a respect of status and authority, and this was strictly marshalled by both parents.
Now, this structed transcended to the children of the family... the girls and boys also had social differential status. Within my family; my sisters (as they approached adolescense) helped my mother around the house after school making the beds, washing, ironing, cleaning, etc, wheareas my brothers and I had part time jobs delivering papers or working as errand boys in the Jewellery Quarter (giving our mother a percentage of our wages). This system would not now be embraced as it necessitated that the girls of the household respected the elevated status of their sibling brothers by waiting on them (as my mother did for her husband)? I vividly remember my mother disciplining my sisters on several occasions for not responding to requests from their brothers for cups of tea and ironed shirts... This wasn't seen at that time as cruel or inappropriate; it was an expected and accepted way of life?
My parents were loving, caring yet strict - they both insisted that their children were respectful, polite and embraced the understanding that everyone, and everything had a place in life.
Did this old fashioned family structure make me an egotistical male chauvinistic pig - no I don't think so... Could it have done, I really don't think so - what is your opinion?
keith