Sisters come second
Dinah Birch: Siblings, 26 April 2012
Thicker than Water: Siblings and Their Relations 1780-1920
by Leonore Davidoff.
Oxford, 449 pp., £35, November 2011,978 0 19 954648 0 Show More
by Leonore Davidoff.
Oxford, 449 pp., £35, November 2011,
“... hate like brothers’ hate.’ We had heard of Cain and Abel, the first pair of brothers. ‘Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.’ We knew about Jacob and Esau too, and thought Esau entirely in the right. ‘And Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing wherewith his father blessed him.’ These were not encouraging precedents. Despite such ... ”