Christian Homes: Religion, Family and Domesticity in the 19th and 20th Centuries

The cult of domesticity has often been linked to the privatization of religion and the idealization of the motherly ideal of the angel in the house. This book revisits the Christian home of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and sheds light on the stereotypical distinction between the private and public spheres and their inhabitants. Emphasizing the importance of patriarchal domesticity during the period and the frequent blurring of boundaries between the Christian home and modern society, the case studies included in this volume call for a more nuanced understanding of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Christian ideas on family, religion, and the home.