Countering our image of early Anglo-American families as sominated by harsh, austere paatriarchs, Anne Lombard challenges long-held assumptions about the history of family life by casting a fresh look at the experience of growing up male in 17th- and 18th-century New England. Drawing upon sources ranging from men's personal writings to court records to medical literature, Lombard finds that New England's Puritan settlers and their descendants shared a distinctive ideal of manhood that decisively shaped the lives of boys and men.