The Age of Innocence Theme of Family

Break out your best Marlon Brando-as-Godfather impression here: in The Age of Innocence, you do not mess with "the Family.” Each family is a sub-unit within society (see our discussion of the theme "Society and Class"), and supervises and controls the behavior of its family members. Each family has a distinct identity and a reigning matriarch or patriarch, and each family is committed to keeping the line going by marrying off various members to equally or more prestigious families.

There is no greater crime in the novel's world than bringing shame on the family name. Divorce is out of the question because it breaks up the family unit. There is something almost cult-like in the way that family members can telepathically figure out what the other family members are thinking without exchanging a word.

1. Take a look at some of the prominent families in the novel: the Archers, Mingotts, Wellands, Beauforts, and van der Luydens, to name a few. Who are the members of each family? What personality traits are associated with each family? What is the history of each family, and how does that history influence their social standing?
2. Take a look at the relationships between family members in the novel. What kind of relationship do mothers (like Mrs. Archer and Mrs. Welland) have with their daughters? What is expected of fathers and sons, husbands and wives? How strong are the ties between extended members of the family?
3. In families, who do you think has the most influence, the men or the women? Why? Support your response with specific incidents from the text.

In The Age of Innocence, most of the female characters fulfill their roles as the domestic glue that keeps families together, and exert a profound influence upon the men in the family.

The Age of Innocence describes a small world where everyone knows everybody else, a society that is really just one large family. The smallness of this world is most evident from the perspective of the last chapter, which takes place thirty years after the main events of the novel.