People often ask me if there were any surprises when I researched my book, THEN COMES MARRIAGE? A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN FAMILY. Actually, there were.
I didn’t realize, for example, that in our distant past there were so many blended families. In fact, our nation’s first First Family was blended. George Washington married widow Martha Custis, who had two children, whom he adopted. This was a common pattern because disease and childbirth claimed the lives of so many husbands and wives. It was also a reality that lasted for a very long time; when Abraham Lincoln grew up a century later, he had a stepmother and stepsiblings after his widowed father remarried.
I recently discussed this on American Family Radio. You can “see” part of the discussion on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amibgIAhBUc&feature=youtu.be&a
Tags: Abraham Lincoln, George Washington
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