The Family Life of Ralph Josselin

What has to be realized about The Family Life of Ralph Josselin is that it represents a scholar's "take" on an individuals life, as revealed through that individuals record of his own life. In other words, what we are looking at in this book is not the direct evidence of a diary but an interpretation of that diary that dwells on what appears to be most significant about it as a historical document. Knowing that the interpretation is going to be paramount, we find it an uncomplicated task to see the value of the book as a slice of history and an exemplar of microhistory. Macfarlane describes the work as an essay in historical anthropology, which is an indication of the interpretative quality of the work and that it will focus less on grand historical events as the core of history than on the people who either experienced such events indirectly or who, involved as they are in their individuated experience of daily life as more or less typical members of their culture,

may--perhaps like the vast majority of the culture, despite the volumes written by professional historians focusing on great events--have been entirely divorced from the supposedly grand scale of experienc

. . .
ffect of enhancing the credibility of judgments that Macfarlane makes about Josselin's motivations on one hand, and the extent to which he was typical of persons of his class and period on the other. In this regard, Macfarlane finds significance in the fact that Josselin recorded (or specifically failed to record) a wide range of experience in his diary in reference to his family and friendship ties intrinsically, and in reference to highly personal psychological meditations on religious and secular subjects. For example, Josselin's young adolescence was informed by the presence of a stepmother, of which Macfarlane says Josselin writes almost nothing. But what he does write indicates a particularly difficult home situation: "The omissions in this account are as significant as the expressed dislike" (126-7). One modern interpretation of this would be that the situation was too painful to confront, and that may be valid, although that does not engage Macfarlane. But Macfarlane does suggest that macrosocial forces may have been at more issue and in the process challenges received theoretical wisdom about ordinary family life in the period: In other pre-industrial societies where a low expectation of life is combined with a low
. . .

Some common words found in the essay are:
Ralph Josselin, Diary Josselin, Macfarlane Macfarlane, Colne Josselin, Whereupon Macfarlane, Puritanism Macfarlane, Josselin Macfarlane, Revolution Macfarlane, Josselin Diary, Civil War, family life, life ralph, family life ralph, life ralph josselin, ralph josselin, macfarlane's analysis, analysis josselin's, country parson, death son thomas, family friendship, war period, seventeenth-century society, universal significance, civil war period,
Approximate Word count = 2539
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page)