zlacker

> Anything I read about middle ages or later was even worse. At best, they put such people into poorhouses.

No, in the middle ages that job would have been done by the guy's son, who would have been living in the home.

>>thauma+(OP)
That is similar to the many family movies today: It shows the situation of specifically those where this ideal idea of family actually works. I doubt that was common in the middle ages. It worked best for those who owned something, like craftspeople or land-owning farmers, and then for their first heir who would inherit it all.

>>nosian+if
Landowning farmers is a gigantic chunk of the population, far bigger than you seem to be imagining. (Technically, many of them "rented", but "renting" land in medieval Europe was a stronger form of ownership than "owning" it in the modern United States is.)

>>thauma+FL
Going to need a source for that. Pretty much everything I've read on the subject (ex. [1]) contradicts that.