Note: In this Update, references numbered below 100 are to the original bibliography, and those numbered above 100 are to the additional bibliography of works since 1980.

The years 1980–1994 saw a burgeoning literature on the history of the Western family so this brief update must be highly selective. Many authors confined themselves within one of the three ‘approaches’ identified in 1980, though many, particularly those with training in anthropology, sought to integrate more than one perspective, and there was a growing interest in the ways in which belief systems other than mere ‘sentiments’ were structured by legal, religious and community pressures [cf also 160]. There was also a greater infusion of feminist ideas, though the impact of feminist scholarship on the history of the family was initially limited by the ambivalence of mainstream feminist writers towards ‘the family’ as an institution [159; 106]. Within the literature, Continuity and Change emerged as a good source for recent developments on the history of the family, while the Journal of Family History provided a major publication outlet for the field; given the shift of editor and editorial board, it seems likely that the flagship mantle in North America will move from 1996 to the new International Journal of Family History. For good regional surveys, see Journal of Family History, 15 (1990) for Italy, Journal of Family History 18 (1993) for the Nordic countries, and [154] for early America.