Search Results

The chapter introduces the theme of the book: pre-industrial marriage in Europe and Asia. The book aims to challenging the rhetoric of an East-West dichotomy in marriage patterns and mechanisms between Asia (China) and Europe (England). 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). The chapter claims that the East-West binary, based on studies of social norms and aggregate statistics implies a picture that is too simplistic. It 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 models and methods of analysis (presented in chapters 2 and 3).

The chapter summarizes the findings of the comparative and country-specific studies included in the book. 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. When comparing ages at first birth instead of age at first marriage, the East-West divide diminishes considerably. Also, some potential determinants of marriage behavior like sex, age, or duration of widowhood influenced marriage chances in the same way, while others like co-resident kin or socioeconomic status indicated similarity in behavior given the differences in family system. In relation to marriage as the prime mechanism of the Malthus model, results give little support. In the European locations there was no marriage response to fluctuation in food prices in the lower socioeconomic status groups, and male marriage candidates from more prosperous families married earlier in all study populations.

This chapter focuses on the debate over homosexual marriage. It examines two revolutionary clauses of the National Family Security Act that cleared the way toward making a reality of what had until then been an impossible dream: universal marriage. The first is the child purity provision, popularly known as the Down-There Amendment, which prevents premarital sex by allowing parents to marry a child to a suitable mate as soon as he or she shows signs of prurient interests. The second—the most controversial aspect of the bill—is the legalization of homosexual marriage, which split the pro-family movement into two camps: the purists, who insisted that homosexuality was a sin, and the pragmatists, who pointed out that denying homosexuals the sacrament of marriage discouraged their impulses toward decent respectability and played into the hands of feminists who claimed that women didn’t really want to get married anyway.

This chapter focuses on the debate over homosexual marriage. It examines two revolutionary clauses of the National Family Security Act that cleared the way toward making a reality of what had until then been an impossible dream: universal marriage. The first is the child purity provision, popularly known as the Down-There Amendment, which prevents premarital sex by allowing parents to marry a child to a suitable mate as soon as he or she shows signs of prurient interests. The second—the most controversial aspect of the bill—is the legalization of homosexual marriage, which split the pro-family movement into two camps: the purists, who insisted that homosexuality was a sin, and the pragmatists, who pointed out that denying homosexuals the sacrament of marriage discouraged their impulses toward decent respectability and played into the hands of feminists who claimed that women didn’t really want to get married anyway.