AMERICAN FAMILIESnote however, that research has not confirmed the
commonly held assumption that Native-American
societies were placid and unchanging prior to
European contact and subsequent subjugation.
Important changes were taking place in Native-
American societies long before the arrival of Euro-
peans (Lurie 1985).
As has been noted, European immigrants to
the American colonies came in nuclear rather than
extended families (and also came as single per-
sons—for example, as indentured servants). It was
long believed that colonial families were very large,
with some early writers claiming an average of ten
to twelve children per family, and that most people
lived in extended rather than nuclear families.
Family scholars, however, have cited evidence show-
ing somewhat lower numbers of children, with an
average of eight children born to colonial women
(Zinn and Eitzen 1987). Scholars also have distin-
guished between number of children born per
woman and family size at a given point in time.
Average family size was somewhat smaller than the
average number of children born, due to high
infant mortality and because the oldest children
often left home prior to the birth of the last child.
Evidence suggests an average family size of five to
six members during colonial times (Nock 1987).
Thus, although the average size of colonial fami-
lies was somewhat larger than today’s families,
they were not as large as has been commonly
assumed. Furthermore, most people in colonial
America lived in nuclear rather than extended
family settings.
To understand the size and composition of
colonial households, consideration must be given
to nonrelated persons living in the home. Servants
often lived with prosperous colonial families, and
other families took in boarders and lodgers when
economic conditions required such an arrange-
ment (Zinn and Eitzen 1987). Households might
also include apprentices and other employees.
The presence of nonfamily members has impor-
tant implications for family life. Laslett (1973) has
argued that the presence of nonkin meant that
households offered less privacy to families and
hence provided the opportunity for greater scruti-
ny by ‘‘outsiders.’’ Colonial homes also had fewer
rooms than most American homes today, which
also contributed to the relatively public nature of
these households.
Colonial communities placed great importance
on marriage, particularly in New England, where
sanctions were imposed on those who did not
marry (for example, taxes were imposed on single
men in some New England colonies). However,
historical records indicate that colonists did not
marry at especially young ages. The average age at
marriage was twenty-four to twenty-five for men
and twenty-two to twenty-three for women (Leslie
and Korman 1989). Older ages at marriage during
this era reflect parental control of sons’ labor on
the farm (with many sons delaying marriage until
their fathers ceded land to them) and also reflect
the lower relative numbers of women (Nock 1987).
Parents also typically exerted strong influence over
the process of mate selection but did not control
the decision. Divorce was rare during this period.
The low divorce rate cannot be equated with intact
marriages, however. Spousal desertion and early
widowhood were far more common experiences
than they are today.The population for the American colonies
came primarily from Great Britain, other western
European countries, and from western Africa.
Initially brought to the colonies in 1619 as inden-
tured servants, hundreds of thousands of Africans
were enslaved and transported to America during
the colonial period (by 1790, the date of the first
U.S. census, African Americans composed almost
20 percent of the population; Zinn and Eitzen
1987). It has been commonly assumed that slavery
destroyed the cultural traditions and family life of
African Americans. The reasoning behind this
assumption was that slave families often were sepa-
rated for sale to other masters, males were unable
to provide for or protect their families, and slave
marriages were not legal. The stereotype of ‘‘ma-
triarchal’’ black families, in which women are the
family heads and authorities, usually assumes that
slavery produced this family form. Empirical re-
search challenges these assumptions. Though slave
families lived in constant fear of separation (Genovese
1986), many slave marriages were strong and long-
lasting (Gutman 1976). Marriages were legitimized
within the slave community (symbolized, for ex-
ample, by the ritual of ‘‘jumping over a broom-
stick’’; Boris and Bardaglio 1987), and two-parent
families were common among slaves as well as
among free blacks in the North and the South
(Gutman 1976). A variety of family structures,