Blended Households. Because of the high mortality rate in the medieval period, especially of women in childbirth, it was common for a child to lose a parent. Moreover, given the dependence of the typical household on the labor of two adults, it was equally common for widows and widowers to remarry. At the highest social and political ranks, second marriages served to extend ties and cement alliances just as effectively as first marriages. Consequently, it was not unusual to find children of different parents growing up together in the same household, raised by a natural parent and a stepparent. Indeed, sometimes a medieval household could be quite complex, incorporating children from previous unions of both the husband and wife, along with the children they had together.

Stepmothers. Popular imagination has not been kind to the stepmother. Even in...