A Study On The Thought Of Parent-child Relationship In 17th Century English Family Conduct Books

In England around the 17 th century,the active Puritan movement inspired a Puritan passion for writing family conduct books.They standardize family relations in theory in the form of family instructions,and parent-child relationship is the key content.They discussed and advocated an ideal parent-child relationship,that is,between parents and children to fulfill their responsibilities as parents and the son of man,which is embodied in the parents’ responsibility for the upbringing,education,marriage and property distribution of their children,as well as the children’s responsibility to respect,obey and provide for their parents.It reflects the religious views of the Puritan writers of the period,the understanding of children’s nature,the principles of practicing this idea and the emphasis on the authority of parents and the social hierarchy order.As a concept,it emphasizes preaching and publicity side,advocate to establish a pecking order and the pecking and harmony warmth of family and social ideal,so the concept and the fundamental difference existed in the parent-child relationship models in actual life,but as a kind of ideology,which in a certain historical period has the important meaning,even part of them have been influence to today.This paper is divided into four parts.The first part briefly explains the background of the writing and publishing of family instructions in the 17 th century.The second part is to several representative family conduct books and the author’s basic situation is discussed;The third part generalizes and analyzes the main contents of parent-child relationship thought in the family conduct book.The fourth part is to analyze the main characteristics of parent-child relationship thought in the family conduct book.