Challenging the East–West Binary
Challenging the East–West Binary
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).
Keywords: marriage, Malthus, Hajnal, late marriages, early marriages, age at marriage, European marriage pattern, celibacy, universal marriage, individualism
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