How the early Christian church gave birth to today’s WEIRD Europeans

[sun rise]

This is an interesting and somewhat provocative piece from the AAAS ScienceMag.org And if you're not familiar with the acronym WEIRD as I was, it stands for Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic.https://www.sciencemag.org/news/201...ian-church-gave-birth-today-s-weird-europeans

In September 506 C.E., the fathers of what would later become the Roman Catholic Church gathered in southern France to draw up dozens of new laws. Some forbade clergy from visiting unrelated women. Others forbade Christians from marrying anyone more closely related than their third cousin. The authors of a sweeping new study say that last, seemingly trivial prohibition may have given birth to Western civilization as we know it.
...
The church’s early ban on incest and cousin marriage, the researchers say, weakened the tight kinship structures that had previously defined European populations, fostering new streaks of independence, nonconformity, and a willingness to work with strangers. And as the church’s influence spread, those qualities blossomed into a suite of psychological traits common today across Western industrialized nations, they argue.
...
The new regulations prohibited people from marrying their first and second cousins and banned the practice of levirate marriage, in which a widow must marry her dead husband’s brother. “That part of a wedding where the officiant asks, ‘Does anybody here have any objections?’ goes back to the church asking, ‘Does anybody here know if these people are cousins?’” Henrich says.


Centuries living under these restrictions fundamentally reshaped European societies’ kinship structure—and their psychology, the authors say. Traditional kin networks stressed the moral value of obeying one’s elders, for example. But when the church forced people to marry outside this network, traditional values broke down, allowing new ones to pop up: individualism, nonconformity, and less bias toward one’s in-group.

 

[Windwalker]

It was fascinating, and jarring a little to me when doing my family tree and researching the lines of my great grandparents. I ran into a snag where I was finding her family tree intersecting with his at both of their grandparents level, where his mother and her father shared the same parents. I thought it was some odd error I had made in my research with online records from Norway, but multiple bits of data all lined up. My great grandparents from Norway were first cousins. Oh the scandal.

Actually I think it had a lot to do with her living with his family after them immigrating here. Methinks proximity and a being in a foreign country may have had something to do with it. Plus she was a gorgeous woman, so who could blame him, I suppose. They had multiple children without any ill-effects, so like anything the church says is wrong, it really isn't.

 

[shunyadragon]

This is an interesting and somewhat provocative piece from the AAAS ScienceMag.org And if you're not familiar with the acronym WEIRD as I was, it stands for Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic.

In September 506 C.E., the fathers of what would later become the Roman Catholic Church gathered in southern France to draw up dozens of new laws. Some forbade clergy from visiting unrelated women. Others forbade Christians from marrying anyone more closely related than their third cousin. The authors of a sweeping new study say that last, seemingly trivial prohibition may have given birth to Western civilization as we know it.
...
The church’s early ban on incest and cousin marriage, the researchers say, weakened the tight kinship structures that had previously defined European populations, fostering new streaks of independence, nonconformity, and a willingness to work with strangers. And as the church’s influence spread, those qualities blossomed into a suite of psychological traits common today across Western industrialized nations, they argue.
...
The new regulations prohibited people from marrying their first and second cousins and banned the practice of levirate marriage, in which a widow must marry her dead husband’s brother. “That part of a wedding where the officiant asks, ‘Does anybody here have any objections?’ goes back to the church asking, ‘Does anybody here know if these people are cousins?’” Henrich says.


Centuries living under these restrictions fundamentally reshaped European societies’ kinship structure—and their psychology, the authors say. Traditional kin networks stressed the moral value of obeying one’s elders, for example. But when the church forced people to marry outside this network, traditional values broke down, allowing new ones to pop up: individualism, nonconformity, and less bias toward one’s in-group.

Rome

 

[Terry Sampson]

This is an interesting and somewhat provocative piece

I, for one, found that article to be very interesting. Out of curiosity, have you ever seen an AAAS article on Catholic and Protestant slavery in the Americas? I'd be interested, if you have.

Catholic practices underwent several changes over the centuries: defining "just" and "unjust" slavery, defining the status of Christian vs. non-Christian slaves, baptized and non-baptized slaves, etc. In addition to infant baptism, the Catholic Church affirmed six other "sacraments", one of which was "marriage". So, in the Americas, predominantly from Mexico south, slaves could be and were baptized as infants and married in the Church. As a consequence, selling off a female who was (a) baptized and (b) married and separating her from her "lawfully married" husband and/or her non-adult children was contrary to 18th and 19th century Church doctrine. (Possibly earlier. Sorry, I can find my resources.)

Protestants, i.e. those who did not baptize infants and did not consider marriage to be a sacrament, treated their slaves as chattel property, to be used for breeding more slaves and sold or bought as individuals without regard to age or prior cohabitation partners.

Major consequence: slave populations in the Catholic Americas blended into existing communities much more quickly than in Protestant America.

Sketchy picture, I know. But IMO fascinating, given my passion for genealogy and previous genealogical investigations: into my wife's Mexican ancestry and into the ancestry of Black friends whose ancestors were brought to Protestant America in the 1800s.

 

[shmogie]

This is an interesting and somewhat provocative piece from the AAAS ScienceMag.org And if you're not familiar with the acronym WEIRD as I was, it stands for Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic.

In September 506 C.E., the fathers of what would later become the Roman Catholic Church gathered in southern France to draw up dozens of new laws. Some forbade clergy from visiting unrelated women. Others forbade Christians from marrying anyone more closely related than their third cousin. The authors of a sweeping new study say that last, seemingly trivial prohibition may have given birth to Western civilization as we know it.
...
The church’s early ban on incest and cousin marriage, the researchers say, weakened the tight kinship structures that had previously defined European populations, fostering new streaks of independence, nonconformity, and a willingness to work with strangers. And as the church’s influence spread, those qualities blossomed into a suite of psychological traits common today across Western industrialized nations, they argue.
...
The new regulations prohibited people from marrying their first and second cousins and banned the practice of levirate marriage, in which a widow must marry her dead husband’s brother. “That part of a wedding where the officiant asks, ‘Does anybody here have any objections?’ goes back to the church asking, ‘Does anybody here know if these people are cousins?’” Henrich says.


Centuries living under these restrictions fundamentally reshaped European societies’ kinship structure—and their psychology, the authors say. Traditional kin networks stressed the moral value of obeying one’s elders, for example. But when the church forced people to marry outside this network, traditional values broke down, allowing new ones to pop up: individualism, nonconformity, and less bias toward one’s in-group.

Yes, and muslims, part of a religion that allows what the Church calls incest has suffered greatly from it.

They, on average have a 10 point lower IQ than the average Westerner.

They suffer from hereditary diseases at a much, much higher rate than Westerners.

They suffer mental illness at a higher rate as well.

 

[sun rise]

Yes, and muslims, part of a religion that allows what the Church calls incest has suffered greatly from it.

They, on average have a 10 point lower IQ than the average Westerner.

They suffer from hereditary diseases at a much, much higher rate than Westerners.

They suffer mental illness at a higher rate as well.

Nice bit of bigotry there.

Marriage up to 2nd cousin:

"Jews of Yemen this rule is also followed albeit not as rigidly." so by your view, those Jews are also inferior.

And by some measures, whites are inferior to Asians