This article scrutinizes the recently postulated link between the European Marriage Pattern (EMP) and economic success. Multivariate analysis of 4,705 demographic observations, covering women's marriage age, female lifetime celibacy, and household complexity in 39 European countries, shows that the most extreme manifestations of the EMP were associated with economic stagnation rather than growth. There is no evidence that the EMP improved economic performance by empowering women, increasing human capital investment, adjusting population to economic trends, or sustaining beneficial cultural norms. European economic success was not caused by the EMP and its sources must therefore be sought in other factors.istorical demography has attracted much attention in recent years, as economists have begun to incorporate demographic behavior into theories of long-run growth. Several recent contributions to this literature focus on household formation patterns, arguing that the explanation for western economic success was the European

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Historians have long assumed that the effects of serfdom on rural economies were uniformly negative. More recently, however, a revisionist view has emerged, which portrays serfdom as having had little or no effect on peasants' social and economic behaviour. This article examines these theories, using archival material for one particular serf estate in central Russia, during the period 1750-1860. The evidence indicates that the effects of serfdom were not as straightforward as either view suggests. While certain aspects of serfdom on this estate -a system of property rights and contract enforcement -were beneficial to its inhabitants, these were not integrated into any larger legal framework, and their benefits were thus prevented from spilling over to the rural economy at large.

In this article, data for the serf estate of Voshchazhnikovo, in Yaroslavl' province, is used to test existing theories about peasant household size and structure in imperial Russia. Empirical evidence from soul revisions, household listings, and estate regulations is brought to bear on the view that large, complex households were predominant throughout Russia in the pre-emancipation period, and that landlords' policies had little effect on the demographic behaviour of serfs. Household size and structure in Voshchazhnikovo, which was located in the Central Industrial region, differed significantly from that found for the estates in the Central Black Earth region studied by P. Czap and S. Hoch. Mean household size in Voshchazhnikovo ranged from 4.5 to 5.2, and roughly half of all households were of the simple-family sort. Age at first marriage was later than in the Central Black Earth region, and a greater proportion of females remained unmarried. There were also substantially more female-headed households on this estate than on the estates studied by Czap and Hoch. Finally, estate records suggest that the landlord at Voshchazhnikovo attempted to influence demographic behaviour through the use of fines and taxes. These attempts were successful, though their effects were unevenly distributed across the Voshchazhnikovo serf population.

Household formation patterns have been adduced in recent years by historians and other social scientists to account for the economic development of western Europe. The so-called European Marriage Pattern, which prevailed throughout northwest Europe, is viewed as having been particularly conducive to early industrialisation and economic growth. But to what extent were household formation systems exogenous to the broader economic and social context in which they were located? Evidence from nineteenth-century Russia indicates that family systems were influenced by the same variables that determined the shape of the local economy; they were part of a complex web of institutions and thus cannot be viewed as independent determinants of economic development.