Mating patterns – an historical perspective.
A.D.J.Macfarlane
(in C.G.N.Mascie-Taylor and
A.J.Boyce (eds.), Human Mating Patterns (Cambridge University Press, 1988)
p.1
There are a number of interlinked
puzzles related to the pattern of
mating. Currently, most modern
and a growing number of developing societies
exhibit a homeostatic
demographic regime where the balance of population to
resources is maintained through
fertility control. Fecundity or natural fertility
is kept well in check through
relatively late age at marriage, non-marriage,
contraception and abortion.
These preventive checks, to use Malthus'
distinction, allow rational,
conscious and artificial control over population.
Marriage is based on personal
choice, the chief pressures being the psychological
and economic state of the
individual. The relatively low birth rate makes
possible a relatively low death
rate. The human body is controlled by individual
mind and individual feelings.
This accords with Levi-Strauss's (1949) 'complex'
marriage system, based on
psychology and economics. It has not always been so,
and indeed it is arguable that
this demographic and marital pattern is very
unusual both in time and space.
The majority of tribal and peasant
societies in the past have had an
‘elementary’ marriage system in
Levi-Straussian terms. That is to say, marriage
was not based on individual but
on group choice and was determined by birth
status, in other words kinship
position. Marriage has characteristically occurred
at a very early age for women
and maximum fertility was aimed for. This very
high fertility was balanced by
heavy mortality, either perennially or in periodic
crises, often triggered by war.
Thus the checks were mainly of a positive kind,
acting through the biology of
disease or starvation. In this classic or crisis
demographic world (Macfarlane,
1976), man was at the mercy of the
environment. There were periods
of disturbance of the balance with rapid
population growth for short
periods before the positive checks operated again.
When the situation now in
Europe is compared with that in the great historic
civilisations of India, China,
Egypt or much of Europe up to the end of the
eighteenth century, it is clear
that a revolution has occurred. The demographic
p.2
pattern is entirely different
and so is the mating pattern. How and why this
transformation occurred has
important implications for the origins of industriali-
sation and the current
demographic patterns in the Third World.
The study of mating patterns in
the past has been transformed over the
last twenty or so years by the
applications of new methods and the discovery of
new materials. Historical
materials concerning marriages, births and deaths are
extremely difficult to use and
for a long time it seemed unlikely that much could
be learnt in detail concerning
such intimate matters before the nineteenth
century. The work of historical
demographers, particularly in France and
England, has changed the
situation. Applying the method of 'family reconstitu-
tion', that is the linking of
baptisms, -marriages and burials, to the registers, and
combining these with listings
of inhabitants and other documents, has provided a
new picture of the emergence of
that 'unique west European marriage pattern, to
which Hajnal (1965) drew
attention some twenty years ago. This study
concentrates on the English
phenomenon, for it was in England that it was shown
in its most extreme and most precocious form.
The particular puzzle in England was to
trace the connection between
population movements and the
origins of the industrial revolution. It w as
obvious that England's unique
and first industrialisation could not have occurred
without a particular and
unusual demographic pattern. The crucial period of
wealth accumulation which
formed the substructure for industrialisation during
the period between about 1620
and 1720 was one in which the population grew
hardly at all. The static
population needed to be explained. Then, with
increasing force from the
1750's, population grew rapidly just as it was needed to
provide the labour for
industrialisation. If England had not had almost the
lowest population growth rate
in Europe in the seventeenth and the fastest in the
nineteenth, it is likely that
industrialisation would not have occurred and our
world would be a very different place.
For a long time the major explanation of
these patterns was sought in the
wrong direction. It was assumed
that the major variable must be changes in
mortality, in essence that the
positive checks which had kept a 'traditional'
society in balance up to the
eighteenth century suddenly gave way. An example
of this approach, one among
many, is the well-known book by McKeown (1976).
During the last five years,
however, it has been convincingly shown by Wrigley
and Schofield that the crucial
variable is fertility, in other words it was the
mating pattern that kept
population in check, and then allowed it to grow. High
age at marriage, little
illegitimacy, and a high proportion never- marrying were
characteristic of the
seventeenth century. Then in the middle of the eighteenth
p.3
century the mean age at first
marriage of women dropped from about twenty-six
to twenty-three, illegitimacy
rates rose dramatically, and the proportion of
women never marrying dropped from
about one quarter to one tenth. Thus these
authors conclude that
"about three-quarters of the acceleration in the growth
rate which took place over the
period is attributable to the increase in fertility
brought about by changing
marriage behaviour...." Or, to put it
another way,
"the changes which
occurred in marriage and marriage-related behaviour in the
course of the eighteenth
century were sufficient to have raised the annual rate
of growth of the population
from zero to 1.26%, even though there was no
change in either mortality or
age-specific marital fertility" (Wrigley, 1981). This
meant that "marriage now
emerges holding the centre of the stage" (Wrigley,
1983).
Marriage strategies and regimes are the key
to much of the social and
economic history of the first
industrial nation. They are also an important key
to understanding what is
happening in the crucial battle between population and
resources in the developing
world today. Put very simply, until ten years ago or
even more recently, it looked
as if the world was doomed to continued very rapid
population growth which would
lead to mass starvation and depletion of
resources. That there is now
some limited cause for optimism, as fertility drops
in many small and large
third-world countries, is due very considerably to
changes in mating patterns. In
particular, the central change from maximal to
limited fertility caused by a
rise in the age at marriage is spreading. There has
been a significant rise in the
age at marriage in many third world countries.
Coale (1978) concludes that
changes in marriage patterns, and particularly the
rise in the age at marriage,
"has been as effective in contributing to the recent
reduction in the birth rate in
the third world as the much more publicised spread
of 'family planning"'.
REASONS FOR
THE MATING PATTERN
Having identified mating patterns, the
demographers admit that they have
merely set an unresolved puzzle
for someone else. How did marriage act in this
way, how old is this marital
pattern in the west, what are the pressures that
caused it" This paper
draws attention to only a few of the features of marriage
pattern which we now take for granted, and the matter is pursued further in an extended treatment of the same themes (Macfarlane, 1986).
The best model of the mating pattern was
presented by Thomas Malthus in
his "Essay on
Population" at the start of the nineteenth century. He analysed
the social groups in England in
turn and showed how the preventive check worked
p.4
in each. The wealthy were
reluctant to marry because they could not afford to
do so, for they would lose
leisure and status if they married too soon. Farmers
and tradesmen could not do so
until well settled in a flourishing business. Wage
labourers were faced with
economic cost and social humiliation if they married
too soon. Servants were
comfortable if single, dismal if married. Malthus
described a situation where
marriage was not natural, automatic, arranged, but a
choice, the conscious weighing
of costs and benefits. He agreed with his chief
opponent Godwin that
"every one, possessed in the most ordinary degree of the
gift of foresight, deliberates
long before he engages in so momentous a
transaction. He asks himself,
again and again, how he shall be able to subsist
the offspring of his
union" (quoted in Place, 1967).
From Malthus' writings (Malthus, n.d.) can
be abstracted the five features
which he considered to be the
essential pre-conditions for such a cost-benefit
approach to, mating and
marriage. The most important was a strong acquisitive
ethic: "the desire of
bettering our condition, and the fear of making it worse
......is the vis medicatrix
reipublicae in polities it operates
as a preventive
check to increase ". This "spirit of capitalism"
was only possible if people
could individually gain from
their actions, in other words if there was private
property. "The operation
of this natural check depends exclusively upon the
existence of the laws of
property and succession". Such private property
would only have any meaning if
the individual was safeguarded in its possession
by a strong and just government
which would allow people to hold on to their
gains. Thus, for instance, it
would only work if those who struggled successfully
against the biological and
sexual urges and put off mating were rewarded by a
better life-style. Virtue was
its own reward, but material comfort would be a
bonus. This would inevitably
lead to an unequal world, a ladder of wealth up
which people would be
encouraged to climb, down which they might very easily
fall. The prizes must be
powerful and widespread; there must be widespread
affluence. f "Throughout a very large class of people,
a decided taste for the
conveniences and comforts of
life......are observed to prevail".
Malthus was, of course, writing a reply to
the Utopian thinker William
Godwin who believed that if
equality could be established, private property
abolished and vice eliminated,
man would live happily ever after. Malthus
pointed out that this was a
delusion. The natural urges of man, and particularly
those powerful biological and
psychological urges to mate, the "passion between
the sexes", would soon
destroy such a proposed paradise. Here he elaborated his
famous theory concerning the
ability of human beings to multiply much faster
than resources. Unchecked
mating, leading to unchecked fertility, would bring
p.5
down the catastrophes of the
"positive checks" of war, famine and disease. The
only rational way was to invoke
and harness the lesser evils of greed and
inequality inherent in society.
In the battle against the urge to mate and
procreate, the only force strong
enough to win was the human desire for leisure
and material affluence.
Marriage patterns were the outcome, to paraphrase
Levi-Strauss again, of the
struggle between economic and psychological (or
biological) factors. Mankind
must learn to be responsible, to control his body by
his mind, to think in the
long-term, to treasure status and wealth rather than
mating and children.
Malthus was aware that the battle was not
merely between the economic
and the biological. The latter
was reinforced in many societies by cultural
pressures. For instance, he
discussed the ways that various religious systems
either encouraged or
discouraged maximal fertility. The aims of life in Hindu or
Chinese ancestor religions
included the desire for many children and particularly
sons. It was one of the marks
of Christianity, or at least the Protestant form,
that it placed a higher value
on celibacy than on marriage and that it placed
little emphasis on the need for
children. Its bachelor founder had set an
example of a life where mating had no part.
The battle between the desire to mate and
the desire for material
affluence only occurs in
certain kinds of societies. In many, it appears that
there is no conflict. wealth,
however defined, is a consequence of having many
children, not an alternative.
This is a reminder that behind the argument that
Malthus advanced were a number
of ethnocentric assumptions about the natural
state of human society in
relation to marriage. The rules and aims of marriage
implicit in the Malthusian
vision are very similar to those which we considered to
be natural and modern. Yet
cross-cultural comparison shows that they are
unusual, and it is important to
analyse them before understanding the force of
the Malthusian marriage pattern.
Malthus assumed monogamy, though most
societies at his time practised
polygamy. He assumed a fairly
equal relationship between husband and wife,
while most societies assumed
male dominance and patriarchal power. He took
for granted that marriages were
for life, unbreakable, though most societies
permitted easy divorce. He
expected couples to re-marry, if one partner died,
to a person of their choice,
though the majority of societies either forbade
remarriage at all, or made
remarriage to a specific kinsman mandatory. He
assumed that the young couple
would live in their own house after marriage,
though the majority of
societies encouraged the young to live for some years
p.6
with either the wife's or
husband's family. He expected there to be a fairly
equal contribution to the
conjugal fund, though the usual situation is for wealth
to flow preponderantly from
either bride or groom's family to the other side.
These institutional rules, so
self-evident yet comparatively so curious, were
matched with equally strange beliefs about the nature of the marriage choice.
The Malthusian 'preventive check' was based
on the assumption that it was
the individual man and woman
who would decide whom they would or would not
marry. By contrast, the vast
majority of human societies at that time believed
that marriage was too important
a matter to be left to the couple themselves; it
should be arranged by the
parents or wider set of kin. Malthus assumed that the
individual could marry whomever
he or she could attract. The very elaborate
rules which in the greater part
of the world outside Europe dictated absolutely
that an individual should marry
within a certain group or category defined by
kinship, geography, caste,
class, religion or occupation, are nowhere evident in
his analysis. All this betrays
an even deeper assumption, that marriage is a
matter of choice. Malthus
believed that to marry or not to marry at all was a
matter for decision by the
individual concerned. The almost universal
assumption that marriage is part
of the natural order, that to mate is, like
eating, a necessary and
automatic activity of human beings, an event like birth
or death that happens to all,
was a view not compatible with his scheme. To
marry or not to marry, to marry
one person or another, to marry now or later, all
these were the result of
conscious deliberation, the outcome of the weighing up
of costs and benefits which could even be reduced to a sheet of paper.
One of the best examples of such conscious
accounting illuminatingly
occurred in the life of Charles
Darwin. At the end of 1838, Darwin read
Malthus, discovered the theory
of natural selection, and drew up a balance sheet
headed "This is the
question" with "Marry" on one side and "Not Marry" on
the
other. Having listed the costs
and benefits, he proved that it was necessary to
marry. So on the reverse he
wrote, "It being proved necessary to Marry. When?
Soon or Late?" The answer
was soon (Macfarlane, 1986). Darwin illustrates the
Malthusian marriage pattern in
practice in his own decision to mate; in relation
to animal species he showed how
the operation of the Malthusian 'positive
checks', combined with maximum
fertility, led to the survival of the fittest. His
life and his work therefore
illustrate those two mating regimes which we are
attempting to analyse.
Among the reasons Darwin gave for not
marrying were "the expense and
anxiety of children", with
consequent "less money for books etc. - if many
children, forced to gain one's
bread". Here he revealed an attitude which
p.7
Malthus again took for granted,
namely that marriage, and particularly the
rearing of children, would be
economically and socially 'costly'. The whole
Malthusian analysis was based
on the weighing up of the advantages and
disadvantages of marriage
regarded from the individual viewpoint. It was
assumed that mating, leading to
children, brought real costs. The majority of
human societies which existed
in Malthus' day would not have seen an opposition
between individual desire
(biological and psychological forces) and individual
wealth (economic and social
pressures). Normally the two have run alongside
each other, rather than in
conflict. In most societies, it is precisely marriage,
mating, and the children's
labour and respect which are the consequence of such
mating which are wealth. To
talk of the cost of marriage, to see children as an
expense and mating as likely to
threaten individual prosperity was, until
recently, an almost
incomprehensible view. Wives and children are wealth and
happiness.
The benefits of such a world where there is
little conflict between
biological urges and social or
economic ends is obvious. Sexual and social
satisfaction can be much more
widespread. The cost, however, is the threat of
a situation where the checks to
rapid population growth are taken out of man's
hands; absence of internal
conflict is replaced by a world of periodic war,
famine and widespread disease.
Before modern contraception, Malthus posed a
choice between the two. More
recently, it has been possible, to some extent, to
have both the gratification and
the control.
HISTORICAL EVIDENCE
The marriage or mating pattern which
Malthus examined and Darwin lived
was widely established in
England in the early nineteenth century and is now
spreading over much of the
world. It was unusual even within Europe at that
time and practically unknown to
all other and preceding civilisations. Trying to
understand its causes leads to
the question how old it was and from where it was
descended. If it emerged in
England in the middle of the eighteenth century as
some have argued, then it could
be seen as partly a by-product of what, in a
circular way, it caused, namely
the industrial and urban revolution. If its main
features are present in the
seventeenth century, then such an explanation has to
be dropped, substituting
perhaps some variant of the thesis that a
bourgeois/puritan/protestant
/capitalist revolution occurred in the sixteenth and
early seventeenth centuries to
cause it. If it is discovered that the main
features go back to the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, then it will be
necessary to re-think many
other matters as well as the mating pattern. The
Reformation, the supposed
political and constitutional revolutions of the seven-
p.8
teenth century, the growth of
international trade from the start of the sixteenth
century, none can be sufficient
explanation. For then the mating patterns would
have far deeper and more
ancient roots, which have gradually become refined
and now form the basis for
marital patterns in much of the world.
In a survey of numerous kinds
of historical records from 1300 to 1840
there was no evidence of a
dramatic shift in the mating pattern at any point in
the period (Macfarlane, 1986).
For the period from 1600 to the present, the
findings have been
independently confirmed in a survey of another, though
overlapping, set of sources
(Gillis, 1985). Leaving on one side the detailed
evidence, what are the major
characteristics of this mating pattern and how far
back can they be traced?
One factor is the fluctuating age at
marriage, somehow linked to the
market for labour, often rising
very high and hence allowing a drop as in the
eighteenth century when it
caused the population to spurt. There is little
evidence that this central
feature of Hajnal's European marriage pattern was
absent in the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries, and some evidence that it was
present. It is certainly the
case that women did not marry in their early or mid-
teens as in many tribal and
peasant societies. Likewise, it is clear that from at
least the fourteenth century
there was a selective marriage pattern, with large
numbers of women, particularly
servants, never marrying. Nor is there any
evidence of a dramatic change
in the rules, positive or negative, about whom one
should or should not marry. No
substantial evidence has yet been produced to
show that there was ever a set
of strong positive rules, based on kinship, as to
whom one must or should marry.
The negative rules were reduced at the
Reformation, and have stayed
unaltered since then except for the late nine-
teenth century allowing of
marriage to deceased wife's sister. The only strong
rule throughout the period was
that the young couple should be independent from
both sets of parents after
marriage, setting up a separate, neolocal, residence.
This led to those simple,
nuclear, households which have been a feature of north-
western Europe and particularly
England from at least the fifteenth century.
This independence was based on
a particular form of funding. The customs of
jointure and dowry, the
balanced and important contribution from the individ-
uals, nuclear families and
friends, seem to have remained in essence unchanged
from the fourteenth to
nineteenth centuries. They ensured that people had to
consider very carefully before
marrying as to whether they would risk losing
parental and other support if they married too soon.
The major aim of marriage, as shown in
letters, diaries, advice books,
poetry and many other sources, was primarily to satisfy the psychological sexual
----------
p.9
and social needs of the
individuals concerned. In the majority of societies, the
prime aim is the desire to have
children; marriage and mating are the means to
that end. In England, it was
the marriage and the mating which were the ends,
children were the consequence,
a by-product of the sexual union. The central
importance of the actual mating
was shown in the view that a marriage was not
valid or binding without sexual
consummation. whereas in many societies a
marriage ceases to exist if
there are no children, in England sterility was not a
ground for divorce. But proven
sexual incapacity from the start was such a
valid ground for declaring that
there had never been a marriage. Throughout
the period, for the vast
majority of the population (the top few hundred families
are often an exception)
marriage was ultimately a private contract between
individuals. The parents had
some say, but ultimately a marriage could occur
without their consent or even
knowledge. On the other hand, marriage could not
occur without the consent of
the partners. These were very old rules, from
before 1300, and lasting
through to the present. They emphasised that the
central feature of marriage was
the conjugal relationship, the depth of feeling
and shared interests of the
couple. Marriage was not a bridge artificially
constructed as a form of
alliance with another group, in which the partners and
children became the planks upon
which political relations were built. It was a
partnership between two
independent adults who formed a new and separate unit,
cemented by friendship, sex and a carefully defined sharing of resources.
This ancient system, balancing the
contradictory pressures of desire for
companionship and sex against
the desire for wealth and social status, led to
many compromises over time. These
compromises, reflected in the greatest
tradition of poems, plays and
novels about love, marriage and mating produced in
any society, are evident from
Chaucer to Tennyson. The heart of the system
was the deep attachment of one
man to one woman, the feeling that each was
incomplete without the other,
most nobly expressed in the words of Shakespeare,
Milton, Donne and others. Since
the marriage was not bounded by formal rules
which dictated whom one should
marry, nor arranged by kin, it is not surprising
that there existed a large and
complex tradition concerning courtship. Court-
ships were characteristically
lengthy, lasting for months or years, conducted by
the couples themselves, and
often fruitless or disastrous. The courtship was
based on the widespread belief
that marriages should, ultimately, be based on
romantic love, a deep and
passionate longing. This external force would grip an
individual and resolve all the
conflicts and indecisions, settling the equations and
making it possible to come to a
decision as momentous as this. The "instituted
irrationality of romantic
love" was clearly a central part of the mating pattern
of England from at least the
fourteenth century if not much earlier.
p.10
ORIGINS OF THE PATTERN
If it is correct that there was a
free-floating, individualistic marriage
choice system as being characteristic
of England from at least the fourteenth to
nineteenth centuries, the
question arises as to what made such an unusual
pattern possible. Normally
mating, for women, occurs at or soon after puberty
and continues steadily.
Everyone capable of doing so mates. Fertility is at a
premium. Here, instead, there
was a large-scale civilisation, still basically
agricultural and
"pre-industrial", whose marital pattern flatly contradict the
norms of most other peasant
societies. The pattern appears to be old, so it
cannot be the result of the
urban and industrial revolutions of the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries, or even
of the supposed religious and political transforma-
tions of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries. What could have caused or
allowed such a mating pattern to emerge?
A hint of an answer (Macfarlane, 1986)
comes from Malthus himself. He
believed that the pattern he
advocated could only exist in what would now be
termed a competitive,
capitalist society. He argued in a way that reflected
earlier thinkers like Adam
Smith and Mandeville, that the private vices of a
competitive market economy
would add up to the general good of the society by
providing a force powerful
enough to strain and channel unrestrained mating.
The private passions of
accumulation, the instituted inequalities of an hierarch-
ical society, the desire for
material comfort, for leisure, for the snobbish
superiorities and esteem of
friends, would be strong enough to save mankind
from the positive checks of
war, famine and disease which would occur if the
"natural passion between
the sexes" was unchecked. Put in other terms, he
argued that the mating pattern,
the weighing of costs and benefits, the battle
between biology and economics,
the constant striving and manoeuvring which
had, for the first time in
human history, brought mankind out of a world of
periodic and dreadful crises up
through the winding spiral of wealth was the
familistic dimension of a
particular economic and political system, or mode of
production, which today would be called capitalism.
Malthus was not the only one to notice
the connection, obvious once
stated, between a pattern of
mating and a socioeconomic formation. Any
anthropologist would expect
that the mating pattern of a society would fit with
other features, the religion,
the economy, the society. It is hardly surprising
that this was the case over the
long 'Bourgeois arch, which stretches from the
twelfth century to our own
time" (Thompson, 1965). Others, too, saw the
connection. Engels in his work
on the family and private property (1902) noticed
the ways in which the mating
and marital system, with its obsession with choice,
p.11
free contract, desire to
possess and own, fitted so well with the emergence of
capitalism .
"Capitalism" created a new world in which "the love match was
proclaimed as a human
right." The middle classes, according to Engels, grew
and the new pattern became
established as the emotional and family con-
comitant of capitalism. One of
the most brilliant characterisations ions of the
connection was made by Max
Weber. He noted the central paradox whereby the
most disruptive of
"irrational" drives, the biological or sexual urges, were
transformed, domesticated and
mobilised at the heart of capitalism. As
societies became more
bureaucratic, more "rational", practising an ever greater
division of labour, so there
increased at their heart an impulsive, apparently
irrational and non-capitalistic
emotion at the individual level: "this boundless
giving of oneself is as radical
as possible in its opposition to all functionality,
rationality and generality the
lover knows himself to be freed from
the
cold skeleton hands of rational
orders" (Gerth & Mills, 1967). Thus rational
capitalism and irrational love
complement each other; the body, and particularly
its reproductive mechanisms,
have been brought under control children are
produced or not produced in accordance with the needs of the economy.
The irony is that, as Malthus showed,
each individual is under the illusion
that he acts freely, making the
decisions. In fact, an invisible hand constrains
him or her in such a way that
the sum of the irrational, free, independent
decisions seems to lead to
rational acts as far as the general good is concerned.
Another irony is that the
nature of his or her impulsive emotions when "giving in"
to love, taking off the
controls to allow mating, is not in opposition, but merely
another aspect of capitalist
ethics. It helps to provide, through the harnessing
of the biological urges, much
of the excitement and activity within a capitalist
society. It is not difficult to
see that the "irrational passion" of love has many
similarities to the
"spirit of capitalism" itself, namely that desire to accumulate,
to possess, to own, to entirely
hold to oneself. There are many parallels
between the market metaphors of
purchase, contract, possession, and the
powerful emotion that seizes
the lover so that, as Dr. Johnson put it, finding that
he is unhappy when not with the
object of his desire, the individual rather rashly
concludes that having such an
object permanently with him will make for eternal
happiness (Johnson 1810).
CONCLUSION
In the progress from the initial puzzles,
as is characteristic of such
research, each solution leads
to further conundrums. It appears that the unique
mating pattern which Malthus
dissected was a powerful contributory factor in
explaining the development of
the first 'modern' and industrial society. Marriage
p.12
and associated mating is the
key to many things, lying at the intersection
between the individual and
society, economics and biology. This marriage
system seems to be centuries
old, at least in England. It varied, of course, by
region, class, time, and these
variations have necessarily had to be ignored. But
there is a discernible pattern
lying behind the confusion of single decisions and
the massive quantitative and
qualitative materials available to the historian.
For the anthropologist used to
Africa, Asia or South America, the whole thing
seems very strange and he is
led to assume that such an unusual set of rules and
aims must be both very recent
and very transitory. Instead, it is very old.
Rather than being transitory,
an approximation of the system, with some
modifications such as easier
divorce and contraception, is sweeping across the
globe. It also appears that
part of the solution of the pattern lies in all the
other features of the society
which nursed it, in the political, economic, religious
and social institutions
labelled capitalist. If this is correct, one implication of
this argument, not explored
here, is that the capitalist system started at least a
couple of centuries earlier than the usual orthodoxy allows.
Two facts may be stressed. First, mating
patterns do, indeed, hold the
centre of the stage in
explaining recent and current developments. Secondly,
there has been a revolution,
from the pre-Malthusian, to the Malthusian pattern.
When this occurred in England
is still not clear, but the consequences are
obvious. The world of
unrestrained fertility with high death rates as the main
control can be contrasted to
that where both fertility and mortality are
controlled. Counting the costs
and benefits of these two approaches
summarizes the choice that many
societies are now experiencing. The benefits
of the Malthusian pattern are
material and economic and the avoidance of the
periodic horrific crises of the
ancien regime. The lightening of the load of
women's bodies, the long period
of relative freedom before marriage, the liberty
to marry or not marry, the
ecstasies and pleasures of romantic love and a
marriage based on choice and
companionship are other advantages. The costs
include the sexual and
psychological frustration, at least in pre-contraceptive
societies, before sexual
consummation; the anxiety of wondering whether or
whom one will marry; the
loneliness of many who have never married or who
have lost their companion,
through death or divorce; the increased strain on
marriages which become the
pivot of the whole emotional system rather than a
minor part of a wider family
system; the inducement to a constantly calculative
approach to human and other
relationships. Whether or not the cost outweighs
the benefits, the mating
pattern is changing fast but, in its deep generative
rules, may have many
similarities to that which was practised by our ancestors
many hundreds of years ago.
p.13
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