ciation of sexual pleasure with sin and guilt; and a growing desire for physical privacy---were all well established by 1750 in the key middle and upper sectors of English society (Stone, 1979, p. 22).
However, just as that quotation highlights the significance of Stone's study for contemporary times, it also exposes what Engels would properly point to as one of the major flaws of the book. Stone focuses on the overall advances made in the family and marriage during this period, and in doing so he focuses on the classes which most represented the particular society he examines.
Engels, on the other hand, is more concerned with those who are generally left out of whatever social, cultural or economic advances are thus made. This is especially true for the wage workers and the women.
To Stone, for example, the advance of individualism was a positive benefit for society,
...