Father Knows Best: A Missive on the Patriarchal Nature of Familial Relations and Societal Structures in Late 16th Century Protestant Germany

Having signed myself up to research that rather nebulous designation of human communal organization, the family, I found myself overwhelmed. Had I the temerity to venture within the dusty confines of my MEH textbook, a veritable deluge of facts would have rained down upon my person and flattened my frontal lobe. Thus, I was compelled to continue and complete my investigation on youtube. After much time spent researching (that is, watching Soulja Boy music videos with a mixture of amusement and awed horror), I came upon the introduction for a television show that occurred early in American broadcasting history, "Father Knows Best."

What has this to do with late 16th century Protestant Germany, the prospect of receiving which information you so titillatingly promised in your title, you ask of me (and in a rather stilted fashion, I might add). Well, if you hadn't realized this most obvious fact already, "Father Knows Best" was the case at that time, in that place, for those people. Though Luther believed in spiritual equality between the sexes, such was not so where politics and economics were involved. He considered women to be wanton harlots whose shortcomings could only be remedied by the "governance of a godly husband" (Coffin 488). Protestants also elevated the family, as well as the married couple to a position almost of godliness and holiness, and it was up to the father to make sure his little ones were well aware of the who-what and what-now of the finer points of religion. In short, it probably wouldn't have been that fun to be alive in late 16th century Protestant Germany.