Paul Dennis Sporer / Writings / Articles

Money and Marriage
by Paul Dennis Sporer

In the long history of Western civilisation, it is fair to say the themes of money, occupation, matching in personality, and opportunity have all played major roles in the decision to marry. Material concerns lay at the heart of previous generations' male-female relations though for very different reasons than the ones posited by historians. Status and occupation were often matched due to a conscious search for similarity and complementarity in background. Consequently, in previous generations, greater external or public emphasis was put on material concerns than emotional compatibility. Perhaps the extent of dissimilarity between people in material factors was larger than in moral factors, thus the discussions to reconcile differences in status and not in personality. The demands of the economy inevitably impacted the decision to marry, and in turn affected relations between men and women. Although customs varied from one region to the next, and were sometimes quite untypical, there was enough similarity within and between regions so that a European set of 'norms' might be constructed. In understanding individual dynamics, whether a town, village, district or territory was part of this standard is largely irrelevant, as local norms are often the product of the universal disposition, character, or the 'spirit', of a people set to contend with specific social circumstances. Other customs, however, cannot be explained in such a way, and are likely the result of a greater than normal variation in inherent genetic disposition. Thus, the 'character' of a local ethnic group is due to influences that are part economic, part demographic, part organisational, part genetic and part undetermined.

We must therefore determine the extent to which human beings allow themselves to be influenced by external forces and the extent to which they freely and consciously choose their own course. If people largely allow external forces to shape their destiny, then our work in history, psychology and sociology should be edifying and fruitful; if not, then it will be impossible to predict behaviour, and the work of scholars is wasted. In studying the past, clear evidence of autonomous behaviour, whether by the individual or some social unit, is difficult to obtain, and so assumptions about 'similarity' and 'diversity' among cultures must be clarified. All science revolves around the simple fact that in order to establish dynamics, we need to see patterns in data. It is entirely appropriate, and indeed necessary, to carefully categorise the manifestations of a phenomenon, and thus note the apparent 'differences' between two regions or communities by putting them into two different 'categories'. But to reduce the number of categories, whether for the sake of expediency or following some partisan ideological programme, is a mistake. If one is trying to prove the existence of a phenomenon, say that economic activity has a decisive impact on human behaviour, then one might be tempted to categorise observations in such a way (by putting them into the 'same' category or two or more 'different' categories) so as to further a theory. The success in proving the decisive impact of any phenomenon necessarily attenuates the influence of that most basic, irreducible factor called free will. In studying any society, we must determine whether people make a choice due to an unquantifiable internal force (free will); due to identifiable internal forces, such as social concerns, ideology, apathy, habit; due to some other force external to the specific problem; due to a lack of an alternative, i.e. externally imposed 'choice'; due to ignorance about the alternatives. We touched upon this issue earlier in relation to the concept of whether a marital union was by fate or by choice. If people do act out of free will, then theories about the 'inevitability' of choice due to economics or culture are seriously jeopardised. For example, it is a well-known and consequently ubiquitous phenomenon that economic considerations in pre-modern agricultural areas prompt couples to have many children (high fertility). It would be a major mistake, though, to simply assume that whatever variations in fertility we see are due mainly to economic considerations, or even worse, to dismiss the fertility difference between two economically identical regions as 'negligible' when the percentage difference might in some other instance be called 'significant'. The fact is that a couple might consciously choose to have a large number of children and might consciously reject advanced procedures that would increase agricultural productivity, and thus their economic standing. Contemporary accounts sometimes make a point of saying that the squalor that was witnessed was as much the result of indolence of people as that of exploitation, inflation, unemployment or usury. However, this is usually not stated explicitly, with the cause for the social situation being left open to interpretation.

We must make careful use of the information derived from various, though not necessarily competing, sources, such as census data, parish information, school curricula material, proverbs, legends, and personal testimony. Some are actual facts, some act as ideals, others as counter-ideals. We should bear in mind, that we cannot look at these observations with the same reliability as numerical evidence. What might be perceptible to the scientist in a statistical sense might not be so to an observer, even if trained. Further, the necessity to cite something in one's report depends on the object or event's moral quality. One describes a place or situation because something goes wrong, rather than when something goes right, and chances are that the authors of historical documents, on the whole, overemphasise the bad and neglect the good. Differences in the size of the community might engender different rules about interpretation of data; smaller communities might be held to different standards than larger ones, or rural versus urban. Also, the men who wrote the reports had to match the expectations of the time in order to maintain their social and governmental position—ideological 'purists' who might make accurate descriptions but only within a limited scope of observation. Defects in information might be attributed to the interviewee, as much as the interviewer. In addition, lying, boasting, exaggerations might have been prevalent, perhaps as a way to denigrate a culture or family and so elevating one's own. Systematic analysis came slowly; observers converged their mental and physical resources on things that they understood, things that interested them, or things that they were assigned to view. The level of error can therefore be high in contemporary 'anthropological' reports, giving false impressions that can persist for many years.

Thus, because of the emphasis on always separating free choice from forced choice, in considering the past we cannot overstress the importance of acknowledging the considerable diversity of family situations, whilst also paying attention to the similarity within a culture. However, human beings have a tendency to reduce diversity as a way of simplifying a problem. Although our ancestors in Europe shared fundamental moral precepts, to the point where we can confidently say that certain attitudes were universal, other beliefs were adiaphorous which varied according to processes of the natural environment, individual temperament, collective temperament, challenges external to the community. Yet one can read in many texts that 'wives were beasts of burden', 'girls were not wanted', 'clans had a strong, tight hold on their members'. These are powerful statements, and should not be made off-handedly as they sometimes are. Such factors might exist locally or regionally, but do not necessarily capture the deeper 'Spirit' of a people. Thus, one should exhibit the greatest care when making the assumption that any nation or region can be consolidated into one category. One can and should do so when required, but with the understanding that upon critical investigation, researchers usually find little justification for such a procedure.
 

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