Assistenza agli anziani, famiglie e istituzioni. Il contributo di Angela Groppi

Autore: Jean-François Chauvard
In: Genesis. XX / 2, 2021
doi:10.23744/4265
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Abstract

This article focuses on the role of families and institutions in the assistance of the elderly in the early modern period by placing the work of the historian Angela Groppi in a more general historiographical context. It first reminds us that this question is strongly conditioned by demographic structures and the definition of old age, which was less a question of age than of weakness. The article questions the link between residence and intergenerational solidarity by discussing the theses of Peter Laslett. It highlights two fundamental aspects of Groppi’s work: the moral and contractual dimension of the solidarity of children with their parents, whose failure to do so justified recourse to justice in Papal Rome, and the place of families in foster care institutions, which formed a system of assistance based on their complementarity.

Keywords: family, old age, assistance to the elderly, intergenerational solidarity, hospice, co-residence, widowhood