How Did People Go ‘No-Contact’ in the 1700s?

“My mother would not stop giving my wife criticism on every topic, career, diet, child care, home decorating, make up, clothes, and more.

“我母亲不停地批评我妻子的每一个话题，事业、饮食、育儿、家居装饰、化妆、衣服等等。

No amount of polite discussions, yelling, and threats by me made it stop.

无论我进行多少礼貌的讨论、大喊大叫和威胁，都无法阻止这一切。

…

……

So I cut mom out for the most part,” one Reddit user recently explained to another .

所以我基本上把妈妈排除在外了，”一位 Reddit 用户最近向另一位用户解释道。

This is just one post of thousands across social media featuring advice about the choice to go “low contact” or “no contact” with family members.

这只是社交媒体上数千篇帖子中的一篇，其中包含有关选择与家人“少接触”或“不接触”的建议。

These posters, as well as advice columnists and even psychologists in the 21st-century Anglophone West, often posit family estrangement as a solution to messy family relationships.

这些海报以及建议专栏作家，甚至 21 世纪西方英语国家的心理学家，经常将家庭疏远视为解决混乱家庭关系的解决方案。

Such advice feels in many ways distinctly modern, perhaps even distinctly North American; a recent poll suggests that 38% of U.S. adults are estranged from a family member, compared to one in 12 in Australia.

这些建议在很多方面都给人一种明显现代的感觉，甚至可能是明显的北美风格。最近的一项民意调查显示，38% 的美国成年人与家庭成员疏远，而澳大利亚这一比例为十二分之一。

But family estrangement is far from new, as my research on Europeans in the 17th and 18th century shows.

但正如我对 17 世纪和 18 世纪欧洲人的研究所表明的那样，家庭疏远并不是什么新鲜事。

For thousands of years, different pressures—both economic and emotional—shaped when estrangement might occur and what people were expected and willing to tolerate in their relationships.

数千年来，不同的压力（经济压力和情感压力）决定了何时可能发生疏远，以及人们在人际关系中期望和愿意容忍的事情。

Medieval and early modern European folklore is full of individuals, mostly men, taking the risk to venture out on the lonely road.

中世纪和近代早期的欧洲民间传说中充满了个人，其中大多数是男性，冒险踏上孤独的道路。

And some of their tales begin with a family rift.

他们的一些故事始于家庭不和。

The eponymous hero of the 13th-century German tale of Parzival breaks his mother’s heart by leaving home to become a knight against her aspirations for his life.

13 世纪德国故事《帕西法尔》中的同名英雄违背了母亲对他一生的渴望，离家成为一名骑士，这让母亲心碎。

She immediately dies, and the opportunity for reconciliation disappears.

她立刻就死了，和解的机会也消失了。

Parzival goes on to achieve greatness, love, and even a family reunion with a long-lost brother.

帕西法尔继续取得伟大、爱情，甚至与失散多年的兄弟团聚。

But he was probably the exception rather than the rule.

但他可能是例外，而不是规则。

We might speculate that the many beggars and vagrants who lived on the road in this period did so because life at home was no longer bearable.

我们可以推测，这一时期许多流落街头的乞丐和流浪汉之所以这样做，是因为家里的生活已经难以忍受。

The road brought its own difficulties.

这条路也带来了它自己的困难。

Many communities remained wary of strangers, happy to provide a few days’ hospitality but not permanent settlement.

许多社区仍然对陌生人保持警惕，乐意提供几天的招待，但不愿意永久定居。

Strong familial identities also complicated family estrangement.

强烈的家庭认同也使家庭疏远变得复杂。

Early modern Europeans lived in a hierarchical world that encouraged people to understand themselves as part of large family-oriented networks.

早期现代欧洲人生活在一个等级森严的世界，鼓励人们将自己理解为以家庭为导向的大型网络的一部分。

Children were a single point in a long lineage, and their role was to support its flourishing.

孩子是漫长血统中的一个点，他们的作用是支持它的繁荣。

The wealthier the family, the greater the investment in the family line.

家庭越富裕，对家族传承的投资就越大。

Obedience to parents was not only a central religious command but how children demonstrated their love.

服从父母不仅是宗教的核心命令，也是孩子们表达爱的方式。

Children who disappointed their parents were subject to severe discipline, even shunning.

那些让父母失望的孩子会受到严厉的管教，甚至回避。

Love was a valued emotion, but marriage bound two families together , so children needed to cooperate with their parents to find a spouse that worked for everyone.

爱情是一种珍贵的情感，但婚姻将两个家庭联系在一起，所以孩子们需要与父母合作，找到一个适合每个人的配偶。

The Scottish aristocrat Isobel Hay disowned her son when he eloped in 1682: “If his choice be hapy, it will be the beter for him, however …

1682 年，苏格兰贵族伊莎贝尔·海 (Isobel Hay) 在儿子私奔时与他断绝了关系：“如果他的选择是幸福的，那对他来说会更好，但是……

I am not resolved to understand that by any particular acquaintance with the gentlewoman or further intimate correspondence with him, who to my sade grief hath behaved in such a foolish manner towards me.” Hay would not meet her son’s wife, nor further engage with him.

我并没有决心通过与那位女士有任何特别的熟识或与他进一步的亲密通信来理解这一点，令我悲伤的是，他对我的行为如此愚蠢。”海伊不会见到儿子的妻子，也不会与他进一步交往。

Her distant relative and contemporary, Anne, Duchess of Hamilton , made a similar decision in 1687 when her son married without her consent.

她的远亲、同时代的汉密尔顿公爵夫人安妮在 1687 年做出了类似的决定，当时她的儿子未经她同意就结婚了。

Anne’s husband was a little more pragmatic when told of his own brother’s rash marriage 10 years later.

十年后，当安妮的丈夫得知自己哥哥的草率婚姻时，态度稍微务实了一些。

He pretended not to know and told a third party to tell his brother, Dumbarton, not to mention the marriage to him!

他假装不知道，并让第三者告诉他的哥哥敦巴顿，更不要提与他的婚姻！

Faking ignorance maintained their emotional ties.

假装无知维持了他们的情感联系。

The truce did not last; Dumbarton became increasingly angry at the family’s refusal to meet his wife.

休战并没有持续多久。敦巴顿对家人拒绝与他的妻子见面感到越来越愤怒。

The decision to shun a family member was not easy.

回避家庭成员的决定并不容易。

Letters show that brothers and sisters sought reassurance from each other that a defense of family honor was worth the sacrifice of a relationship with a child.

信件显示，兄弟姐妹互相寻求保证，为了捍卫家庭荣誉，牺牲与孩子的关系是值得的。

The shunned children were often equally distraught.

被回避的孩子往往同样心烦意乱。

“I cannot bring myself to believe that after all your love and affection to me from childhood to the present you will do violence to your own heart and condemn me to misery now,” begged Letitia Tennent to her father William, an Irish banker, when he refused to accept her choice of husband in 1831.

1831 年，当利蒂西亚·坦南特 (Letitia Tennent) 拒绝接受她为她选择的丈夫时，她向爱尔兰银行家父亲威廉 (William) 恳求道：“我无法相信，你从童年到现在对我的爱和感情，如今却会伤害你自己的心，让我陷入痛苦。”

Family networks extended well beyond the immediate nuclear household, and could include the families of servants who lived on aristocrats’ estates over generations.

家庭网络远远超出了直接的核心家庭，可能包括世世代代生活在贵族庄园里的仆人的家庭。

They, too, experienced estrangement, especially in mid-18th-century Europe, as the growth of wage labor began breaking down traditional aristocrat-servant bonds.

他们也经历了疏远，尤其是在 18 世纪中叶的欧洲，因为雇佣劳动的增长开始打破传统的贵族与仆人的联系。

When the Duke of Hamilton died prematurely in 1742, his English wife fired the household servants in Scotland.

1742 年，汉密尔顿公爵过早去世，他的英国妻子解雇了苏格兰的家仆。

A longstanding servant, and one with a generational attachment to the family, James Taylor “has never bin [been] within the dukes house sence he left them[.] he thinks the dutchess has not used him well nor any of the dukes servants for they make grate complante of her,” another newly unemployed servant explained to her boyfriend.

詹姆斯·泰勒是一位长期的仆人，对这个家族有着代代相传的感情，“自从他离开公爵夫人之后，他就再也没有去过公爵家。他认为公爵夫人没有很好地利用他，也没有好好利用公爵的仆人，因为他们对她很满意，”另一位新失业的仆人向她的男朋友解释道。

Betrayal and estrangement emerged as new economic conditions changed the boundaries of who counted as kin.

随着新的经济条件改变了亲属的界限，背叛和疏远就出现了。

More generally, the replacement of six-month, year-long, and seven-year contracts with a weekly wage liberated individuals from all sorts of connections.

更一般地说，用周薪取代六个月、一年和七年的合同将个人从各种联系中解放出来。

With cash in their pockets, people were freer to leave behind employers, towns, and their families.

口袋里有了现金，人们就可以更自由地离开雇主、城镇和家人。

The need to tolerate a difficult family life to achieve financial security declined.

为了获得经济保障而忍受困难的家庭生活的需要减少了。

People were also encouraged to think beyond the family and its needs to their own success—a change in attitude as well as economics.

人们还被鼓励超越家庭及其对自身成功的需求进行思考——态度和经济上的改变。

Not everyone benefited in the same way.

并非每个人都以同样的方式受益。

The single, childless, and poor found it easier to walk away from family ties.

单身、无子女和穷人发现摆脱家庭关系更容易。

Women who immigrated to North America in the 19th century were usually young and single.

19世纪移民到北美的女性通常是年轻且单身。

Many sent money home to their parents and siblings, but disappearing was a viable option, too.

许多人把钱寄回家给父母和兄弟姐妹，但消失也是一个可行的选择。

A bad marriage might end in desertion, and it was typically husbands who left.

一段糟糕的婚姻可能会以遗弃而告终，而离开的通常是丈夫。

Trials for bigamy highlight the opportunities to rebuild family life in a new place with a new identity—and men predominated amongst those convicted.

重婚罪审判突显了在新地方以新身份重建家庭生活的机会，而被定罪的人中男性占主导地位。

As today, their reasons for leaving their families were often mundane—marriages that became “ uncomfortable ,” that made individuals unhappy.

和今天一样，他们离开家人的原因往往很平常——婚姻变得“不舒服”，让个人不快乐。

Women with children often became stuck in place; they needed family support for childcare and survival.

有孩子的妇女常常被困在原地；他们需要家庭支持来照顾孩子和生存。

The lists of many towns’ poorest were often full of deserted wives with young children, unable to work and without a support network.

许多城镇的最贫困人口名单上常常充斥着带着年幼孩子的被遗弃的妻子，她们无法工作，也没有支持网络。

Estrangement from wider family, as well as a spouse, could leave people with very few options.

与更广泛的家庭以及配偶的疏远可能会让人们几乎没有选择。

Over the 20th century, the growth in welfare systems reduced the risk of having to fall back on family resources, and higher levels of education and wages for people of all backgrounds supported independence from the wider kin group.

20世纪，福利制度的发展降低了不得不依靠家庭资源的风险，而各种背景的人的教育水平和工资水平的提高支持了从更广泛的亲属群体中独立出来。

New psychological accounts of the self encouraged people to distinguish their own interest from that of the wider family.

对自我的新的心理学解释鼓励人们将自己的利益与更广泛的家庭的利益区分开来。

As people no longer identified so closely with their family group, the possibility of family estrangement became less daunting.

由于人们不再与家庭群体如此紧密地认同，家庭疏远的可能性变得不那么令人畏惧。

Reddit shows that breaking contact with your kin remains difficult.

Reddit 表明，与亲人断绝联系仍然很困难。

“It’s in the past but it hurts like hell,” puzzled one estranged child .

“那是过去的事了，但还是很痛。”一名疏远的孩子困惑地说。

“I am with you on this!

“在这件事上我和你站在一起！

It sucks indeed,” another sympathized.

确实很糟糕，”另一位同情道。

That going no contact remains emotionally challenging even now reflects that this history of obligation and affection has not entirely been left behind.

即使现在，不与人接触仍然在情感上具有挑战性，这反映出这段义务和感情的历史并没有完全被遗忘。

Our responsibility to work toward the interest of our kin continues to haunt what family involves.

我们为亲属的利益而努力的责任继续困扰着家庭。

Katie Barclay is an Australian Research Council Future Fellow and professor in history at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia.

凯蒂·巴克莱（Katie Barclay）是澳大利亚研究委员会未来研究员，也是澳大利亚悉尼麦考瑞大学的历史学教授。

She writes widely on emotions, gender, and family life and is the author, most recently, of The Kiss: A History of Passion and Power .

她撰写了大量关于情感、性别和家庭生活的文章，最近出版了《吻：激情与权力的历史》一书。

Primary editor: Sarah Rothbard | Secondary editor: Eryn Brown

主要编辑：莎拉·罗斯巴德 |二级编辑：Eryn Brown

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