The Geography of Infectious Disease and the European Marriage Pattern

The European Marriage Pattern (EMP) was characteristic of preindustrial northwestern Europe and, in recent years, has been proposed as an important factor in the rise of the West. Yet, the origins and ultimate causes of the EMP remain obscure. We examine a novel hypothesis that the EMP can emerge in geographic environments with a lighter infectious disease burden. We overcome significant challenges facing empirical analysis of premodern societies. Using a large, individual-level database of marriages from the county of Kent, England, as well as a spatial regression discontinuity approach, we demonstrate a robust association between physical ecology and female age at first marriage (FAFM). We also find that the two potential channels proposed in the literature play starkly different roles in explaining our finding. Specifically, we fail to find that pastoralism plays any significant role in explaining the EMP, while the mortality rate channel accounts for a significant portion of the observed relationship between the disease environment and FAFM.