That Fierce Edge

Abstract

Using a combination of brief case studies and statistical analysis of probate disputes in eighteenth-century England, this article argues for an expanded interpretation of Georgian family life—an interpretation that understands the tugs and pulls of siblinghood. In the eighteenth century, emerging ideas about social equality based on idealized siblinghood tangled with engrained family hierarchies to produce messy, constantly shifting, sibling politics. Confronting competing social expectations that classified them as equals yet ranked them hierarchically by gender, birth order, and marital status, Georgian sisters and brothers fiercely wrestled over material and emotional investments from their parents and from one another. Sibling conflict was most common when reality sharply diverged from expectations of equality, such as between older sisters and younger brothers or between men and their brothers' widows.