Introduction: Investigating the medieval family -- The late Roman family and transition to the Middle Ages -- The family in the medieval West -- The family in the Byzantine East -- The family in the Islamic world -- The Jewish family in the Middle Ages -- The physical environment of the medieval family -- Grooms and brides, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers -- Children and the family -- Religion and the family -- Families, labor, and the laboring family -- The family as rhetorical device : traditional, transitional, and non-traditional families.