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Wealth and Marriage at the Cape: Consanguineous Unions as a Strategy

Green, Erik LU ; Cilliers, Jeanne LU ; Rijpma, Auke and McCants, Anne E. (2025) In The History of the Family p.1-36
Abstract
Marriage is among the most fundamental social relationships undergirding the transmission of cultural norms and family property. How marital partnerships are formed is of considerable interest to a broad range of social scientists, particularly when and whether partners are sought from within the family or from the outside. We study the relatively high levels of cousin marriage characteristic of European settler families in the Cape Colony in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, using a unique linked data sample that combines marital choices with information on taxable wealth, and frontier settlement. This permits us to test two common explanations for cousin marriage in the European demographic literature, a wealth-consolidation... (More)
Marriage is among the most fundamental social relationships undergirding the transmission of cultural norms and family property. How marital partnerships are formed is of considerable interest to a broad range of social scientists, particularly when and whether partners are sought from within the family or from the outside. We study the relatively high levels of cousin marriage characteristic of European settler families in the Cape Colony in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, using a unique linked data sample that combines marital choices with information on taxable wealth, and frontier settlement. This permits us to test two common explanations for cousin marriage in the European demographic literature, a wealth-consolidation strategy versus a geographic isolation hypothesis. We find no evidence of cousin marriages facilitating differential wealth consolidation in the next generation, suggesting that if this was a deliberate strategy to accumulate wealth, it was not a very successful one. (Less)
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author
; ; and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
in press
subject
keywords
Consanguinity; marriage strategies; wealth preservation; isolation; colonial frontier
in
The History of the Family
pages
1 - 36
publisher
Taylor & Francis
ISSN
1873-5398
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
e0f41c4d-a715-4608-9bfb-d0721a461cc8
date added to LUP
2025-03-10 08:14:18
date last changed
2025-04-04 14:53:12
@article{e0f41c4d-a715-4608-9bfb-d0721a461cc8,
  abstract     = {{Marriage is among the most fundamental social relationships undergirding the transmission of cultural norms and family property. How marital partnerships are formed is of considerable interest to a broad range of social scientists, particularly when and whether partners are sought from within the family or from the outside. We study the relatively high levels of cousin marriage characteristic of European settler families in the Cape Colony in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, using a unique linked data sample that combines marital choices with information on taxable wealth, and frontier settlement. This permits us to test two common explanations for cousin marriage in the European demographic literature, a wealth-consolidation strategy versus a geographic isolation hypothesis. We find no evidence of cousin marriages facilitating differential wealth consolidation in the next generation, suggesting that if this was a deliberate strategy to accumulate wealth, it was not a very successful one.}},
  author       = {{Green, Erik and Cilliers, Jeanne and Rijpma, Auke and McCants, Anne E.}},
  issn         = {{1873-5398}},
  keywords     = {{Consanguinity; marriage strategies; wealth preservation; isolation; colonial frontier}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{03}},
  pages        = {{1--36}},
  publisher    = {{Taylor & Francis}},
  series       = {{The History of the Family}},
  title        = {{Wealth and Marriage at the Cape: Consanguineous Unions as a Strategy}},
  year         = {{2025}},
}