Die huwelikspatrone van Europese setlaars aan die Kaap, 1652 - 1910
Date
2014-07
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Pretoria : Human Sciences Research Council, North-West University
Abstract
The Cape Colony at the southernmost tip of Africa, founded in 1652
with the arrival of European sailors and soldiers under the auspices of the
Dutch East India Company, provides, we believe, an excellent opportunity to
investigate the persistence of “European” demographic characteristics outside
of North-Western Europe, given that it’s social and cultural institions originate
from this region. In addition, the Cape has perhaps one of the most well
documented settler populations in the world, and the wealth of quantitative
archival evidence available allows for new demographic research at a micro
level. This study makes use of one such quantitative source: the newly-digitised
South African Genealogical Registers, a detailed account of all European settler
families at the Cape, to provide new estimates of settler marriage patterns from
European settlement to unification in 1910. Why is an understanding of marriage patterns important? A recent literature
has emphasised the role of women’s agency in Europe as a key determinant of
the rise of a market society and, ultimately, the Industrial Revolution (Diebolt
and Perrin 2013; Voigtländer and Voth 2013). Women’s agency arose as a
result of an increase in the age at which women married during the earlymodern
era in Europe, also known as the European marriage pattern (EMP),
which was, according to De Moor and Van Zanden (2010), caused by three
related factors: 1) consensus in the marriage decision, 2) the Roman-Dutch
inheritance laws which ensured that women were given an equal share in the
estate of their deceased husbands, and 3) the rise of an active labour market
which gave women between the ages of 12 and 25 the opportunity to earn
wage income. These three factors, claim De Moor and Van Zanden (2010),
explain a divide within Europe along an imaginary line, first observed by
John Hajnal and therefore also known as the Hajnal line, running from St
Petersburg in Russia to Trieste in Italy; those regions west of the line exhibited
characteristics of the EMP, those east of the line did not. The consequences of a higher age of marriage was that the period during which women were fertile
within the marriage shortened, resulting in lower fertility rates. A higher age of
marriage also meant that both men and women gained additional time to earn
an income and improve their skills before marriage. This rise in human capital,
argue De Moor and Van Zanden (2010), was a key building block of the rise
of a market society and, later, the eighteenth-century Industrial Revolution.
The aim of this article, then, is to provide a series of eighteenth- and nineteenth
century marriage pattern estimates for the Cape Colony that allow us to view
Cape development in a comparative perspective and, perhaps more tentatively,
test whether the same factors that De Moor and Van Zanden (2010) propose,
are also true at the Cape. From both quantitative and qualitative sources we
find no evidence that a European Marriage Pattern developed at the Cape,
even though both consensus in marriage and inheritance laws were present.
However, more quantitative evidence is necessary to confirm or refute the De
Moor and Van Zanden (2010) hypothesis.
Description
CITATION: Fourie, J. & Cilliers, J. 2014. Die huwelikspatrone van Europese setlaars aan die Kaap, 1652-1910. New Contree: A Journal of Historical and Human Sciences for Southern Africa, 69:45-70.
The original publication is available at http://dspace.nwu.ac.za/handle/10394/4969
The original publication is available at http://dspace.nwu.ac.za/handle/10394/4969
Keywords
Marriages; Cape Colony; Demography; Inheritance; Women;Eighteenth century., Europeans -- South Africa -- Cape of Good Hope, Immigrants -- South Africa -- Cape of Good Hope, Colonists -- South Africa -- Cape of Good Hope, Marriage -- South Africa -- Cape of Good Hope -- History
Citation
Fourie, J. & Cilliers, J. 2014. Die huwelikspatrone van Europese setlaars aan die Kaap, 1652-1910. New Contree: A Journal of Historical and Human Sciences for Southern Africa, 69:45-70.