Row

Row refers to wether someone is up the front, ready to wallop (and be walloped) with swords, or hiding in the back like a wuss.

Generally, being in the back-row increases your phisical defence, whilst lowering your phisical attack (although often a long-ranged weapon, such as a bow, will ignore both of these); the back row, then, is the place where you will find archers and mages, with warriors up front.

specifically
FF1:

No rows as such, but 'order', with those 'up top' getting a higher percentage of the phisical attacks directed at them than those 'down below'. Being 'up top' is somewhat analogouse to being in the front-row, with 'down below' being the back-row.

FF2:

Being in the back row increases phisical defence. a long-range weapon, such as a bow, is required to attack.

FF3:

Phisical defence increased in the back row; phisical attack lowered. long-range weapons ignore which row you're in.

The great tradition of annoying the player through randomly changing the row/order settings
in the first (at least) three final fantasys, the developers, for whatever sadistic reasons, descided to randomly screw with your row settings with the sole intent of irking you.

In FF1, whenever someone is poisoned or dead they are swapped with whoever is furthest down. As the one furthest up is the most likely to have been hit by the poisonous enemie, this means that, usually, your fighter is put at the bottom and your black mage is put at the top, where he procedes to be killed within one round, to your great annoyance.

In FF2, dying puts someone in the back row, usually making them completely useless in the fight after they were revived if you forget to change their row.

In FF3, changing rows in-battle is permenent, meaning that if you're rear-attacked and everone changes rows, you then have to go to the menu and un-change the rows. forgetting to do this makes your next battle effectively a rear-attack without the ambush, as your entire row is inverted.

summary

 * rows are a minor and often overlooked aspect of tactics in FF.
 * put people with long-range or majical attacks in the back row, where their phisical defence will go up without a noticable effect on their phisical attack.
 * put fighters in the front row.
 * keep an eye out for the game randomly screwing with your settings.