Comparing Eurasian Family Patriarchy Across Space and Time: Prospects and Challenges

Mikolaj Szoltysek, The Cardinal Wyszynski University of Warsaw
Rafal Mista, University of Warsaw
Bartosz Ogórek, Institute of History, Polish Academy of Sciences

In this paper we use the global micro-level harmonised population data on the more than 300 European historical regions from the North Atlantic Population and Mosaic projects (1700-1926) and the IPUMS International censuses of 14 Asian and North African countries after the 1960s in a regional breakdown (N=91 million individuals, in 917 regions). We pursue our research goals through: (1) merging census data for historical Europe with the sample of developing countries after the 1960s; (2) calculating for this unique dataset the Patriarchy Index developed by Gruber and Szoltysek (2016), which is used to quantify the social and ideological construct of familial patriarchy or aspects of it, in a regional breakdown; (3) systematically comparing the PI of historical regions in Europe with the PI in other world areas while controlling for the variation in underlying structural conditions. Our findings call into question dualist conceptualisations of 'patriarchal Asia' and the 'liberated West'. The alleged uniqueness of the historical European patriarchal patterns is difficult to sustain. The historical European level of patriarchy was far more heterogeneous at both extremes than the contemporary Asian data show. While we find that historical NW Europe, as well as parts of Central Europe, generally exhibited lower levels of patriarchy than most contemporary Asian societies, and the lowest levels of PI are consistently found in the British, Swedish, Dutch and Icelandic regions of the 18th and 19th centuries, many other low-to-moderate levels of patriarchy that were common across in historical continental Europe cannot be considered unique from a Eurasian perspective. Not only we present evidence that PI levels in many parts of Asia were comparable to those of early modern Europe, but we also show that some parts of historical Europe had higher PI levels than many contemporary Asian countries.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 121. Power Dynamics: Patriarchy, Slaveholding, and Class Struggles