Girl power: the European marriage pattern and labour markets in the North Sea region in the late medieval and early modern period1

2009/06/30 by Tine De Moor, Jan Luiten van Zanden · 4 citations
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Historical Economic and Social Studies #Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes #Historical Legal Studies and Society

paper · doi:10.1111/j.1468-0289.2009.00483.x

openalex publication_date 2009/06/30 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01

Abstract

This article argues that the European Marriage Pattern (EMP) has played a fundamental role in western Europe's economic development. The EMP emerged in north-western Europe in the late medieval period as a result of the preaching of the Catholic Church promoting marriage based on consensus, the rise of labour markets, and specific institutions concerning property transfers between generations that encouraged wage labour by women. It resulted in a demographic regime embedded in a highly commercial environment, in which households interacted frequently with labour, capital, and commodity markets. We also discuss possible long-term consequences for human capital formation and institution building.

Citations

• The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State
• Expositio and Oblatio: The Abandonment of Children and the Ancient and Medieval Family
• Family Ties in Western Europe: Persistent Contrasts
• Two Kinds of Preindustrial Household Formation System
• Standards of Living in the Later Middle Ages

Cited by

• Book production and the onset of modern economic growth
• The Three Horsemen of Riches: Plague, War, and Urbanization in Early Modern Europe
• The Black Death and the origins of the 'Great Divergence' across Europe, 1300-1600
• Elizabethan era [wikipedia]
• Marriage [wikipedia]
• Witch trials in the early modern period [wikipedia]

Related

• Heiratsverhalten und sozialökonomische Strukturen: England und Mitteleuropa im Vergleich [1996]
• Putting women back into the early modern economy: Work, occupations, and economic development
• The Whole Economy: Work and Gender in Early Modern Europe
• Plebeian Marriage in Stuart England: some Evidence from Popular Literature
• The Black Death and the origins of the 'Great Divergence' across Europe, 1300-1600