Did the concept of childhood simply not exist in the Middle Ages?

Ideas & Philosophy · Published 3 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: Philippe Ariès, a pioneer of cultural history, famously argued that childhood was a social construction rather than a biological given. He claimed that medieval society lacked a distinct concept of childhood, viewing children as miniature adults. His work fundamentally transformed how we study the private lives of ordinary people.

Philippe Ariès, who lived from 1914 to 1984, was a central figure in the history of mentalities. This field, which gained prominence between the 1960s and 1980s, shifted the historical lens toward the daily concerns and private lives of ordinary people. Ariès is best known for his 1960 work, L’Enfant et la Vie Familiale sous l’Ancien Régime, published in English as Centuries of Childhood in 1962. His central, and highly controversial, thesis was that the very idea of childhood was absent in medieval society. He argued that because of high mortality rates, parents avoided deep emotional attachments to children, regarding them as a probable loss until they could function independently, typically around age seven.

According to Ariès, the modern understanding of childhood emerged gradually between the 15th and 18th centuries, driven by economic advancement and the growing importance of formal education. He posited that as society evolved, childhood became a distinct, protected phase of life. This perspective was revolutionary because it treated childhood as a social invention rather than a fixed biological reality. By framing family life within a larger historical narrative, Ariès established the history of childhood as a serious academic discipline, and he remains a standard reference in the field today.

Despite his influence, Ariès’s work has faced significant criticism. Detractors argue that he ignored evidence of medieval affection for children, accusing him of presentism—the tendency to interpret the past through the lens of modern values. Furthermore, his political identity was complex; he described himself as an 'anarchist of the right' and maintained ties to royalist circles, yet he collaborated extensively with left-wing historians like Michel Foucault. Beyond childhood, Ariès applied his social constructionist framework to the history of death, exploring how attitudes toward mortality shifted from the Middle Ages to the modern era in works like his 1977 book, L'Homme devant la mort.

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