In support of their paradigm-busting theory, the researchers mapped kinship around the world. By then, the mould for WEIRD societies had already been set, creating the pattern for social organisation up to our own day. Their research stopped at about the year 1500. The mediaeval Church’s marriage code shattered that and created one which is more individualistic, more accepting of strangers, and less conforming. The usual pattern of kinship around the world is an emphasis on in-group loyalty, obedience, and conformity. Generations of marrying out of the kinship circle because of Church laws, the authors argue, weakened ties amongst relatives and drastically altered human psychology. “There is,” said Hugh, “no one equal to whom we can give him in marriage, because of our kinship with neighbouring kings.” For example, in 987 Hugh Capet, the French king, was so desperate to find a wife for his son Robert that he asked the Byzantine Emperor if he had any suitable brides. The result of these marriage laws was that lineages died out due to a lack of legitimate heirs and that kings and nobility had to search further and further to find potential spouses who were not within the forbidden circle. The Church also brought an end to polygamy and concubinage. At the same time, the Church promoted marriage “by choice” (no arranged marriages) and often required newly married couples to set up independent households. Incredibly, early in the second millennium, the ban went as far as sixth cousins. This eventually extended not only to distant cousins but also step-relatives, in-laws, and spiritual kin. They contend that in the Early Middle Ages, for reasons which are now obscure, the Church expanded the circle of relatives whom Catholics (and nearly everyone was Catholic) were forbidden to marry. The heightened individualism, lower conformity and greater trust in strangers in these populations are at least in part due to the mediaeval Church’s strict prohibition of incest and intermarriage. These decisively shaped what they term WEIRD societies – Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic. The authors, from Harvard University and George Mason University, argue that it is mediaeval laws on marriage. Instead of being found in philosophy or theology tomes or dusty chronicles, it was in canon law, the Catholic Church’s internal regulations. Economist Tyler Cowan says that “there is some chance that this is one of the half dozen most important social science and/or history papers ever written”.Įxtraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. That’s why a recent article in the leading journal Science is being treated as an exceptionally important diagnosis of the distinctive features of Western culture. And far from being a purely academic argument, it has immediate repercussions on today’s culture wars. Western exceptionalism is one of the fiercest battlegrounds of contemporary history. Why is the West different? Why did democracy spring from Western nations? Why did science develop in the West? Why did capitalism develop in the West? Why did tolerance begin in the West? Why did the welfare state originate in the West?
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