Although the family is regularly classified as a natural or biological unit, this is also a

social construction. Despite its apparently transhistorical elements, its meaning is

based on specific cultures and their historical objectives. Based on statistics and social
studies, historians use the term family to describe a kinship and a legal unit based on
co-residence relationships or consanguineous relationships (blood links).

In the most primitive societies there were two or three family cores, often linked by
kinship ties, which moved together part of the year but were dispersed in stations
with food shortages. The family was an economic unit: men hunted while women
collected and prepared food and took care of children.

Until the tenth century in large areas of Western Europe, marriage was a civil matter
involving couples and their families, since it was the father who passed the
guardianship of his daughter to her husband. This act was performed in a public
setting with rituals, for example: a kiss, exchange of an object or words of blessing. In
some cases the contracting parties could not have sexual intercourse for three to
thirty days after the marriage and the marriage could be broken or sealed with the
same laxity.
After some transitions, marriage will be a matter of the Roman Empire, so it begins to
be regulated by canon law, which will determine the rights and obligations of the
parties, especially related to heritage and inheritance.
The Church assumes the control of sexuality, and of education, determining the
monogamic and indissoluble character of marriage, whose main purpose is
procreation. Prescribes duties of the children towards their parents (obedience and
respect) and of the parents towards the children (sustenance, instruction and
correction).
When entering into Modernity, the family becomes a private space, which is related to
the emergence of the construction of the notion of "individual". It is interesting to see
the privatization of the family space through the legal apparatus, social contract, etc.
With the emergence of the State - Nation we also see the complexity of relations with
the Church.
 1. Primitives times
2. Tenth Century
3. Roman Empire and the church
4. Modern Times

Questions

How were the families in the primitive times?

Where was the act of marriage take place in the tenth century?

When was the canon law instituted?

What were the church in charge of?