A Cultural History of Marriage in the Age of Empires

Paul Puschmann, Paul Puschmann

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781350179745
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: 19th Century History
• Index: History

During the age of empires (1800–1900), marriage was a key transition in the life course worldwide, a rite of passage everywhere with major cultural significance. This volume presents an overview of the period with essays on Courtship and Ritual; Religion, State and Law; Kinship and Social Networks; the Family Economy; Love and Sex; the Breaking of Vows; and Representations of Marriage. Using this framework, this volume explores global trends in marriage. In nineteenth-century Western Europe, marriage was increasingly regarded as the only way to reach happiness and self-fulfilment. In the United States former slaves obtained the right to marry, leading to a convergence in marriage patterns between the black and white populations. In Latin America, marriage remained less common, but marriage rates were nevertheless on the rise. In African and Asian societies, European colonial powers tried to change indigenous marriage customs like polygamy and arranged marriages, but had limited success. Across the globe, in a time of turbulent political and economic change, marriage and the family remained crucial institutions, the linchpins of society that they had been for centuries.

CHAPTER ONE

Courtship and Rites

A Survey of the World’s Family Systems

JAN KOK

INTRODUCTION

Courtship has often been an exciting part of adolescent life. Finding and wooing a partner involves excitement, fun, and—for many—exploration of sexuality. But the experiences of the world’s youths diverged widely in what their courtships looked like. On the one hand, for many youths, especially in East and Southern Asia, the possibilities to seek a partner themselves were extremely limited or nonexistent. On the other hand, for adolescents in Europe, for instance, courtships could be protracted almost interminably, as marriage prospects were dim for those without property. In a global overview of the history of courtship, the first step will be to chart the “space” for courtship in the lives of young men and women.

First, we need a workable definition. Merriam-Webster’s dictionary describes courtship as “the act, process, or period of courting,” and to court as “to seek the affections of; especially: to seek to win a pledge of marriage from.”¹ This simple definition immediately raises—at least—four questions. First: who is doing the seeking? We need to understand the position of young adults, their opportunities to work, study, travel, and meet one another. It is also crucial to recognize that men and women had different interests in courtship and marriage, and certainly took different risks in premarital (sexual) relationships. In many societies, however, not the youths themselves but the parents, often through professional intermediaries, selected a marriage partner. Thus, we also have to go into the reasons, rites, and consequences of arranged marriages. Second: who were involved in the negotiations, activities, and supervision surrounding courtship? Even when prospective partners would have liked to keep their relationship secret, many parties held an active interest, such as parents, siblings, neighbors, peers, church and state officials. Third: who was considered a suitable partner? How important were age, looks and health, income (prospects), status, ethnicity, and religion? Apart from and beyond those factors; how important was love, or the passionate affection for the partner? According to many scholars, the nineteenth century was the era in which romantic love became a prime condition for marriage, at least in Europe and the Western offshoots. But others claim that the zest for marriage that was apparent in rising marriage rates was mainly caused by diminished employment opportunities for women.² Thus, to understand courtship, we also need to understand the motivation for marriage. Finally: what are the different steps in courtship perceived as “the process of courting”? When did one become active in courtship, when did a relation become serious enough to consult the parents, through what rites were marriage intentions communicated to the community? The stage of courtship ends with the wedding rituals; what did these signify?

Central in our discussion of “courtship space” is the question: how much freedom did youths have to find a partner who matched them emotionally and physically? In other words, what was the role for love? In his cross-cultural analysis, Goode rejected the simple dichotomy between romantic and non-romantic marriages, but proposed a continuum or range between polar types: “At one pole, a strong love attraction is socially viewed as a laughable or tragic aberration; at the other, it is mildly shameful to marry without being in love with one’s intended spouse.”³ Whether love is perceived as “tragic,” dangerous, or desirable depends on the role of marriage in a given society. When youths are married off to cement the alliances between dynasties or lineages, the emotions and choices of the partners themselves had better be kept out of the equation lest they endanger the transaction. Furthermore, when the young couple forms a subjugated unit in an extended household, their personal affection is, for the time being at least, of no importance or even potentially disruptive. Finally, when marriage is seen as a way of transmitting or joining estates or other forms of wealth, personal choices also take second place. In other words, (sexual) freedom and love within courtship depends on how marriages serve the political and economic interests of families at large.⁴

A useful approach for understanding the structural roles of courtship and marriage in different cultures is by looking at “family systems,” which can be defined as “a cluster of norms informing family processes.”⁵ In this chapter, I follow the classification of family systems of Therborn⁶ which he describes as “geocultures,” or institutions or structures surrounding family life which are shaped by a (macro) region’s traditions, religion, and ecology and have a lasting impact even after periods of rapid change.⁷ Therborn discusses the role of sexuality and marriage in seven family systems, and in this chapter I follow his lead by discussing courtship in seven “families”: the Confucian East Asian family, the South Asian Hindu family, the Islamic West Asian and North African family, the Christian (European and North American) family, the sub-Saharan African family, the Southeast Asian family, and the Latin American Creole family. These regional family systems are strong generalizations, but in this short space we simply cannot do justice to the huge intraregional variation existing within each system. Moreover, by approaching courtship from the perspective of norms and rules, we should not ignore the fact that these rules often did not apply to the landless and also that people, even when the rules did apply to them, could find ways to circumvent them. Lovers could elope or when marriage was still denied them, could live in some form of consensual union. We also have to be aware that the parental or societal pressure on finding the “right partner” could become so difficult that people eventually opted out of the marriage process altogether. Finally, the perspective of regional family systems offers insight into the path dependency of traditions, but this is not to deny the impact of globalizing forces already apparent in the nineteenth century. Scholars, missionaries, and colonizing governments across the globe were advocating the European family model—including if not free choice at least the spouses’ consent to the marriage—as an essential step in becoming a modern, civilized, and prosperous society.⁸

In the following sections, we will look for the “structural space” for courtship in each regional family system, where possible keeping track of class differentials. The stage of courtship ends with the wedding rituals; what did these signify? In the words of Tambiah, a ritual is “a culturally constructed system of symbolic communication.”⁹ Marriage rituals convey important messages on the meanings of union formation, sexuality, and fertility in each family system. The concluding section will summarize the social and cultural variables that account for the variation in courtship across the globe.

THE CONFUCIAN EAST ASIAN FAMILY

The family types of China, Korea, and Japan have all been inspired by Confucian ideals on the hierarchical relations between family members and on the integration of the household in the state apparatus. However, there were strong differences between the three countries in the process of household formation and in the hierarchical position of new couples and, therefore, also in the “space” for courtship.

The ideal Chinese household consisted of a male head, his wife and possibly concubines, his married sons and their wives, and their children. The senior male would be a true patriarch, having absolute authority over his children, regardless of their age or marital status. Women married exogamously, thus into another family group in another village. Therefore, most women faced an early rupture with their own family. The family’s property was to be held in joint ownership but could be divided (equally) by the sons after the father’s death. Of course, this ideal could not be realized by small landowners. Among poor peasants often only one son could inherit, who had to compensate the others. Poverty also meant that girls were considered a heavy burden on the family budget. Thus, in poor families they were more likely to be killed or sold, to be given away as infants, or to be married later in exchange for gifts. Daughters in wealthy families, on the other hand, were pawns in strategies of forging alliances between clans and were given dowries. Their marriage tended to be at a somewhat later age.¹⁰ In the household of their in-laws, young married women occupied the lowest position in the family hierarchy. Her husband did not offer her much consolation, as showing affection was considered a sign of male weakness.¹¹ The dowry asserted the status of her natal family, but it also guaranteed her some protection against ill-treatment.

Apart from this “major” marriage form, in which girls left the parental household in their teens, two other forms of marriage existed in China. In several regions, infant girls were raised by their parents-in-law. They would marry one of their sons (in a so-called “minor marriage”) when the intended match promised to be a success. If not, they were passed on to another family. When no heir could be adopted, a girl stayed with her parents and married a man who was brought in temporarily, on the condition that the first child would be added to his wife’s patrilineage.¹² The latter form is called an “uxorilocal marriage.”

As will be clear from this brief description, there was virtually no room for courtship in China. Partners were often strangers to one another, and their preferences and emotions played no role in the calculations of their (grand)parents. Courtship “space” was also limited because many girls were kept indoors, which was made easy by the practice of foot-binding.¹³ Until well into the twentieth century, girls hardly received any formal schooling.¹⁴ However, women working in the fields or as servants had more chances to meet with men. Also festivals, such as New Year, were occasions to meet and possibly to fall in love. Running away with a lover was an option, but if caught the elopers were punished harshly. As a formal marriage was not possible, the girl would have to become a concubine, which gave her a lower status.

We can imagine the feelings of Chinese girls having to leave their family to live with a man they did not even know. A unique insight in their emotions is provided by the writings of women in southern Hunan province. During many centuries, women there had their own script, which men could not read. Women wrote (autobiographical) ballads to be recited to their friends, such as the “Complaint of the unmarried daughter,” which talks of a girl being pushed out by her married brothers and of her secret love:

My eldest brothers says over and over again that he wants to marry me off

My second brother says over and over again that he will write the contract

My third brother always shows a friendly character

And has hidden the red paper for h...