TY - JOUR
T1 - Partner choice in the Netherlands, 1813–1922
T2 - The changing importance of ascribed and achieved status
AU - Maas, Ineke
AU - van Leeuwen, Marco H.D.
PY - 2019
Y1 - 2019
N2 - Partners choose each other on the basis of many characteristics. Social status is one of them. A person’s social status can be ascribed, e.g. derived from the position of her or his parents, or achieved, e.g. derived from her or his own occupation. According to the status-attainment hypothesis, during the nineteenth century achieved status increased in importance and ascribed status decreased, especially in regions that experienced more modernization. In contrast, the romantic-love hypothesis predicts that modernization caused a decrease in the importance of both ascribed and achieved status. This paper tests these claims. We use data on all the marriages that took place in all the municipalities in six (of eleven) Dutch provinces between 1813 and 1922. These couple-level data are supplemented with municipal-level data on several dimensions of modernization. We find that men’s occupational status did indeed become more important and the occupational status of their fathers less important in the second half of the nineteenth century, when modernization accelerated. In general, modernization is positively related to partner selection based on achieved characteristics and negatively related to partner selection based on ascribed characteristics. However, especially in larger cities, some support is also found for the romantic-love hypothesis.
AB - Partners choose each other on the basis of many characteristics. Social status is one of them. A person’s social status can be ascribed, e.g. derived from the position of her or his parents, or achieved, e.g. derived from her or his own occupation. According to the status-attainment hypothesis, during the nineteenth century achieved status increased in importance and ascribed status decreased, especially in regions that experienced more modernization. In contrast, the romantic-love hypothesis predicts that modernization caused a decrease in the importance of both ascribed and achieved status. This paper tests these claims. We use data on all the marriages that took place in all the municipalities in six (of eleven) Dutch provinces between 1813 and 1922. These couple-level data are supplemented with municipal-level data on several dimensions of modernization. We find that men’s occupational status did indeed become more important and the occupational status of their fathers less important in the second half of the nineteenth century, when modernization accelerated. In general, modernization is positively related to partner selection based on achieved characteristics and negatively related to partner selection based on ascribed characteristics. However, especially in larger cities, some support is also found for the romantic-love hypothesis.
KW - modernization
KW - nineteenth century
KW - partner choice
KW - romantic love
KW - status attainment
KW - status homogamy
KW - The Netherlands
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85062342236&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/1081602X.2018.1558412
DO - 10.1080/1081602X.2018.1558412
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85062342236
SN - 1081-602X
VL - 24
SP - 123
EP - 148
JO - History of the Family
JF - History of the Family
IS - 1
ER -