This is the first comprehensive study of family life throughout Spain between 1700 and 1970. Using local and aggregate source material, David Reher builds upon the growing interest of historians and social scientists in the study of the family, and its importance for the demographic, social, and economic reproduction of society.

The study adopts methodological approaches from a number of disciplines and encompasses the great regional and local complexity characteristic of Spanish society both now and in the past. The family is considered as a dynamic decision-making unit intent on securing maximum benefit for its members, though the success of this strategy is contingent on the prevailing social, demographic, economic, and cultural realities.

Key subjects considered include co-residence patterns, family systems, family demography, family economies, kinship networks, marriage markets, infant care, the elderly, the limits of vulnerability, and the individual life-course.