There has always existed a specific place, well delineated, devoted to that part of our existence which in all languages is called private. An area of immunity, given over to reflection, to rest, where we each may abandon the weapons and defences with which it is wise to protect ourselves when we venture outside. An area where we can relax, be at ease, free from the protective armour which defends us from the exterior. This is our familiar, domestic and secret place. In this private space all that is most precious, most private - ours alone - is contained. All that we have been forbidden to reveal or parade because it may offend some public code of honour. Naturally enough contained within our home, under lock and key, is the circumscribed reality of the family unit. The fence protects a group, a complex social form, where inequality and contradictions seem to reign, where the power of men over women, of old over young, of the master over the servant is more easily perceived than it is outside. The ambition of this work is exactly that of revealing these slow or precipitous changes within the family which over the course of time has characterised the concept and various aspects of private life. Georges Duby