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The paper reviews research findings from various European countries (including the author's own studies in Vienna) on intergenerational relations between parents and their grown-up children. Numerous data disprove certain important features of the classical theory of the isolated nuclear family in industrialized and urbanized society. Although, according to newer data, joint living is a minority pattern, effective interaction (economic support, help in both ways and mutual visiting) is frequent and emotionally important particularly to the elderly. ‘Intimacy—but at a distance—corresponds to wishes of both generations. A special section of the paper is dedicated to propositions for theoretical innovation in the problem area studied including, e.g., a criticism of role theory, a criticism of statements on family cohesion based on findings of help patterns only. The paper postulates an amalgamation of major aspects of social gerontology with a sociology of the family cycle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on marriage and the blood feud in heroic Europe. A stock dilemma found in the heroic literature of early medieval Europe was that of an innocent victim caught between conflicting loyalties. Thus, a wife enmeshed in a struggle or feud between her own family and that of her husband present an especially dramatic and popular example of such a dilemma. By looking at the role of women in the heroic society, it has been observed that the frequent occurrence of such tragic situations in the literature was not simply fortuitous. Rather the women frequently were placed, or chose to place themselves, in a situation which carried a strong likelihood of such a tragedy coming to pass. One of the prominent roles of a woman was, through her marriage that of acting as feud-healer or alliance-binder. This use of marriage either to heal an open blood feud or to create an alliance so as to prevent future feuds was an obvious and sensible policy. But, since the ironic ends of marriage frequently were unrealized, at least in the literature of the day, women became almost sacrificial victims to good but vain intentions. The composition of blood feuds by non-violent means is a major criterion in measuring the transition from a primitive to a more sophisticated society.