In colonial times almost everyone lived in a family, or, more precisely, in a family group that included the persons related by blood along with servants, farmhands, and sometimes slaves. The people who inhabited the thirteen colonies relied on each other. From birth to death, a colonial person was provided for by the family and in turn worked for the welfare of the others in the household. Food, clothing, and shelter were no more important than the sense of belonging the family gained by the way in which they lived and worked.

European colonists retained a family image that had more in common with feudal ways of life than with modern notions of family. Instead of thinking of extended blood relations as family, American colonials reserved the term for the people that lived on the same land, worked together, and only secondarily were of...