The Geniza preserves some of the densest and most detailed evidence for family life that we possess from the medieval Middle East. This essay examines how scholars have used this evidence to date and how they have not yet done so, in three parts. It first assesses Goitein’s foundational work on women and the family—its strengths, its limitations, and its relationship to the study of the family in other historical fields. It then surveys the work that has been done since Goitein, which for many years focused primarily on the legal construction of marriage but has recently returned to asking more broadly based questions about kinship, households, and men’s and women’s lived experiences within marriage. The essay concludes by discussing some of the inherent constraints that the field faces moving forward and identifying some especially promising areas of future inquiry.

中文翻译：

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Geniza 和家族史

Geniza 保留了我们在中世纪中东拥有的一些最密集、最详细的家庭生活证据。本文分三个部分探讨了迄今为止学者们如何使用这些证据以及他们尚未这样做的原因。它首先评估了戈伊因关于妇女和家庭的基础工作——它的优势、局限性，以及它与其他历史领域的家庭研究的关系。然后它调查了自 Goitein 以来所做的工作，多年来主要关注婚姻的法律建构，但最近又开始询问有关亲属关系、家庭和男女婚姻生活经历的更广泛的问题。