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, ba ... More

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.