Homogamy In The 19th Century

Homogamy, defined as the similarity between partners, plays an important role in the gene pool, the distribution of resources, and the social relations in communities. In Partner Choice and Homogamy in the Nineteenth Century: Was There a Sexual Revolution in Europe?, Marco H.D. van Leeuwen and Ineke Maas (2002) used qualitative and quantitative data from nineteenth century northern Sweden to determine if there was a move from homogamy to heterogamy. They found little support for decreasing homogamy, but found that the industrialisation of northern Sweden throughout the nineteenth century led to separation from community-led courtship and marriage. This may have been due to increasing immigration, and the move from “rural society into one of urban and industrial wage earners”. In this essay, the broad geographical scope of the article question, the definition of homogamy, and the narrow results will be discussed in the context of other research.
The use of northern Sweden as a representative of the whole of nineteenth century Europe is peculiar, especially due to the contrast between European countries at the time. Van Leeuwen and Maas used Sundsvall as a case study, and found “no sign of decreasing homogamy”. However, in more industrialised European countries where …show more content…
They perform a thorough and in-depth analysis of 5472 cases of marriages in the time frame of 1800 to 1889 to identify trends of occupation homogamy. However, there is little analysis of any other types of homogamy, such as religious, educational, geographic, and age. This can be problematic, because this analysis does not cover the broad scope of their research question. By focusing on only one dimension of partner choice, the authors are limiting themselves in possible explanations for trends, such as the importance of age and place of