How did the European Marriage Pattern persist? Social versus familial inheritance: England and Quebec, 1650–1850

Gregory Clark, Neil Cummins and Matthew Curtis

Economics & Human Biology, 2024, vol. 54, issue C

Abstract: The European Marriage Pattern (EMP), in place in NW Europe for perhaps 500 years, substantially limited fertility. But how could such limitation persist when some individuals who deviated from the EMP norm had more children? If their children inherited their deviant behaviors, their descendants would quickly become the majority of later generations. This puzzle has two possible solutions. The first is that all those that deviated actually had lower net fertility over multiple generations. We show, however, no fertility penalty to future generations from higher initial fertility. Instead the EMP survived because even though the EMP persisted at the social level, children did not inherit their parents’ individual fertility choices. In the paper we show evidence consistent with lateral, as opposed to vertical, transmission of EMP fertility behaviors.

Keywords: Demography; Economic history; European Marriage Pattern; Selection pressures (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J12 N11 N13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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Related works:
Working Paper: How did the European marriage pattern persist? Social versus familial inheritance: England and Quebec, 1650–1850 (2024)
Working Paper: How did the European Marriage Pattern persist? Social versus Familial Inheritance: England and Quebec, 1650-1850 (2024)
Working Paper: How did the European Marriage Pattern Persist? Social versus Familial Inheritance: England and Quebec, 1650-1850 (2022)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ehbiol:v:54:y:2024:i:c:s1570677x24000352

DOI: 10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101383

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