Introduction: Jesuits and the Idea of Family in Early Modern Europe

The Jesuit charism, which prioritized fealty to a voluntary family, invoked new ways of thinking about the duty, obedience, and love that Jesuits owed to the Society and to biological kin. The tension between family ties and the exigence for total emotional detachment from kin was subject to various degrees of accommodation. Nevertheless, the metaphor of the Society as family continued to exert a powerful influence over actual familial relations as well as attitudes toward discipline and governance.