Similarity in Difference: Marriage in Europe and Asia, 1700-1900 (Eurasian Population and Family History)

A study of marriage in preindustrial Europe and Asia that goes beyond the Malthusian East-West dichotomy to find variation within regions and commonality across regions. Since Malthus, an East-West dichotomy has been used to characterize marriage behavior in Asia and Europe. Marriages in Asia were said to be early and universal, in Europe late and non-universal. In Europe, marriages were supposed to be the result of individual choices but, in Asia, decided by families and communities. This book challenges this binary taxonomy of marriage patterns and family systems. Drawing on richer and more nuanced data, the authors compare the interpretations based on aggregate demographic patterns with studies of individual actions in local populations. Doing so, they are able to analyze simultaneously the influence on marriage decisions of individual demographic features, socioeconomic status and composition of the household, and local conditions, and the interactions of these variables. They find differences between East and West but also variation within regions and commonality across regions. The book studies local populations in Sweden, Belgium, Italy, Japan, and China. Rather than a simple comparison of aggregate marriage patterns, it examines marriage outcomes and determinants of local populations in different countries using similar data and methods. The authors first present the results of comparative analyses of first marriage and remarriage and then offer chapters each of which is devoted to the results from a specific country. Similarity in Difference is the third in a prizewinning series on the demographic history of Eurasia, following Life under Pressure (2004) and Prudence and Pressure (2009), both published by the MIT Press Since Malthus, the great contrast between Europe (England) and Asia (China) in marriage patterns and mechanisms, and household formation and family systems has been underlined by demographers and anthropologists. In Europe, late marriages, high celibacy rates, preventive checks, individualism - in Asia, early marriages, universal marriage, positive checks, parental authority (e.g. Malthus, Hajnal, Wrigley/Schofield, Macfarlane, Wolf, Skinner). This book challenges the rhetoric of an East-West dichotomy in marriage patterns and mechanisms, because it implies a picture that is too simplistic, based mainly on studies of social norms and aggregate statistics. This book argues for the EAP approach to the study of pre-industrial marriage: comparison of local populations in Asia (China, Japan) and Europe (Belgium, Italy, Sweden) for which individual-level longitudinal data are available, using the same framework, models and methods of analysis (event history analysis). In relation to the East-West binary, the EAP findings confirm the previous picture of general differences in marriage pattern and family system. However, when studied at the individual-level, great similarity in human behavior across study populations was found. For some variables effects were universal (sex, age, duration of widowhood), while for others effects indicated similarity given the differences in family systems. Little support was found for the existence of a Malthusian preventive check exclusive for Europe: there was no marriage response to fluctuation in food prices in the lower socioeconomic status groups in the European locations, and individuals from more prosperous families married earlier in all study populations Challenging The East-west Binary ; Eurasian Marriage : Actors And Structures / Christer Lundh And Satomi Kurosu -- Nuptiality : Local Populations, Sources, And Models / Satomi Kurosu And Christer Lundh -- The Roads To Reproduction : Comparing Life-course Trajectories In Preindustrial Eurasia / Martin Dribe ... [et Al.] -- The Influence Of Economic Factors On First Marriage In Historical Europe And Asia / Tommy Bengtsson ... [et Al.] -- Remarriage, Gender, And Rural Households : A Comparative Analysis Of Widows And Widowers In Europe And Asia / Satomi Kurosu ... [et Al.] -- Social Norms And Human Agency : Marriage In Nineteenth-century Sweden / Martin Dribe And Christer Lundh -- Prudence As Obstinate Resistance To Pressure : Marriage In Nineteenth-century Rural Eastern Belgium / Michel Oris, George Alter, And Paul Servais -- Between Constraints And Coercion : Marriage And Social Reproduction In Northern And Central Italy In The Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries / Renzo Derosas ... [et Al.] -- Economic And Household Factors Of First Marriage In Two Northeastern Japanese Villages, 1716-1870 / Noriko O. Tsuya And Satomi Kurosu -- Categorical Inequality And Gender Difference : Marriage And Remarriage In Northeast China, 1749-1913 / Shuang Chen, Cameron Campbell, And James Lee -- Similarities And Differences In Pre-modern Eurasian Marriage / Christer Lundh And Satomi Kurosu. Christer Lundh, Satomi Kurosu, Et Al. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.