Great Wave

by Fischer, David Hackett;

  APPENDIX M

  Price Revolutions and Family Disintegration

  One of the great social questions in the late twentieth century is about the disintegration of the family. A particular source of concern is the rapid rise of births outside marriage, which in the United States increased from 3.5 percent in 1940 to 28 percent in 1990. These estimates refer to the entire American population. Among African Americans, the proportion of births to unwed mothers was 65 percent in 1990, and climbing. Similar trends (with different magnitudes) appeared in many nations. By the 1990s, the proportion of babies born outside of marriage was higher in Britain and some European nations than in America. See U. S. National Center for Health Statistics, Vital Statistics of the United States (1995); Statistical Abstract of the United States (1993), table 101.

  By 1990 the problem of family disintegration had reached crisis proportions and became profoundly destructive of individual lives. Many studies have found that children born to unwed mothers are more likely to get into serious trouble in later life. By comparison with children in complete families, children born outside of marriage are less likely to stay in school or keep out of jail. They are less able to find a good job, or any job, or to be able to hold a job. They are also less likely to become married themselves, but more likely to have children of their own outside of wedlock.

  The Problem of Cause

  Why has this happened? Why have births outside marriage so greatly increased? In the United States, most answers to these questions have come from politicians, journalists, and social scientists. They think of the problem as something unique to our own time, and seek an explanation that is rooted in the twentieth century.

  Opinion on the right holds that the modern social welfare system is largely responsible by paying unmarried women who have babies, and by giving them more attention in motherhood than they would otherwise receive. Observers on the left believe that the cause is poverty and exploitation of the poor by the institutions of “late capitalist society.” Others think that the cause is a general decline in the structure of “family values,” or a disintegration of systems of social control, or a disruption of processes of socialization, caused by a crisis of western civilization during the twentieth century. Many believe that the problem is specific to minorities which British historian Peter Laslett brutally calls “the bastardy-prone sub-society.”

  This problem looks very different when it is studied in a broad historical perspective. We are not the first generation to face the problem of family disintegration on a massive scale. Much historical research has been done on births outside of marriage in America and Europe, from the sixteenth century to the present. Many scholars have also studied the history of prenuptial pregnancy, which yields similar (but not identical) patterns of change. The results are summarized in Peter Laslett, Karla Oosterveen, and Richard Smith, eds., Bastardy and Its Comparative History: Studies in the History of Illegitimacy and Marital Nonconformism in Britain, France, Germany, Sweden, North America, Jamaica, and Japan (Cambridge, Mass., 1980); and in Daniel Scott Smith and Michael Hindus, “Premarital Pregnancy in America, 1640–1971: An Overview and Interpretation,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 5 (1975) 537–70.

  Patterns of Long Term Change

  On the question of long-term change, these studies yield similar results. Three times in the span of modern history, conceptions outside marriage and births to unwed mothers have surged to very high levels. The first of these waves occurred in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and reached its peak circa 1600. The second wave started in the early eighteenth century (earlier in England), and crested in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The third wave began in the early twentieth century (ca. 1900), and is still in progress as this work goes to press in 1996.

  These three waves alternated with other long periods when illegitimacy and prenuptial pregnancy declined and stabilized at low levels. One such period occurred in the mid- and late seventeenth century. Another happened in the nineteenth century, from about 1830 to 1900.

  In this long historical pattern of alternating surges and declines, the magnitudes of change were very large. Studies of illegitimacy in England, for example, find that the proportion of births outside of marriage rose in peak periods as high as 10 percent (and much higher in some regions) during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. During the period of decline from 1650 to 1750, they fell below 1 percent.

  The range of prenuptial pregnancy rates in the United States was even greater. In some New England towns as many as 40 percent of brides were pregnant at the end of the eighteenth century. During the mid-nineteenth century, prenuptial pregnancy in New England fell below 5 percent, as it had also done in the seventeenth century. These findings have been replicated in many studies. The results vary in detail by region and ethnic group, but secular trends are broadly similar.

  Why? What set these waves in motion? What brought them to an end? Causal theories favored by social scientists and journalists in the late twentieth century cannot answer these questions. Our modern system of social welfare might possibly be suspected as the cause of the third wave, but certainly not of the first or second. Further, an expansion of social welfare institutions happened in the nineteenth and very early twentieth centuries when rates of illegitimacy were falling. The “crisis of late capitalism” explanation fails in the same way. Earlier waves of family disintegration occurred before capitalist systems had fully developed. The idea of a “bastardy-prone sub-society” does not help to explain historical trends, for in each wave births outside marriage tended to increase in nearly all social groups.

  Figure 5.08 summarizes the results of a research project by the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure on illegitimacy from 1570 to 1975, and civil registration data on the proportion of births outside marriage to 1993. Illegitimacy ratios are births to unwed mothers as a percent of all births, here presented as quinquennial means of annual data. The proportion of births outside marriage in Great Britain was 30.1 percent in 1990. The source is Peter Laslett, Karla Osterveen, and Richard M. Smith, eds., Bastardy and Its Comparative History (Cambridge, 1980), 14–17; Annual Abstract of Statistics 130 (1994) series 2.17; (1995) series 2.14.

  Family Disintegration and Price Revolutions

  To understand the root of this problem, we need to study it in a broader historical context. An important causal clue may appear in the fact that secular trends in births outside marriage and in prenuptial pregnancy synchronize closely with the rhythm of long-term price movements. The three long surges in births outside of marriage all coincided with price revolutions. The two declines occurred in eras of price equilibrium (see figures 3.11 and 3.29 and 4.25).

  This correlation certainly does not prove that price movements themselves were the proximate cause of family disintegration, but it establishes beyond reasonable doubt an association of some kind. Skeptics must explain away three broad wave-surges, two wave-troughs, and a very tight chronology.

  Several causal models come quickly to mind. One possibility would be a direct and simple causal connection between material stress and family stress—that is, between wage-price disparities, employment uncertainties, etc., and family disintegration. Another possibility would be a more complex causal sequence from material disequilibria to cultural anomie. Yet another would be a material disruption of systems of socialization and social control. A fourth would be a linkage to population-growth, in which price movements and births outside marriage are both consequences of a common cause.

  In any case, three conclusions are clear enough. First, the crisis of family disintegration in the late twentieth century is not a unique event, and cannot be understood merely by reference to conditions in our time alone. Second, the strength of correlations between economic and demographic trends tells us that recurrent waves of family disintegration in the sixteenth, eighteenth and twentieth centuries were not random variations; neither were the periods of d
ecline of illegitimacy in the late seventeenth century and again in the nineteenth century. These movements were part of a larger pattern. Third, the evidence strongly suggests that the rise of births outside marriage will reverse sometime in the near future.

  In the meantime, the historical evidence also suggests that policies for control of the problem should center on the material and cultural stresses that impinge on young lives in the penultimate periods of price revolutions: that is, on price-wage differentials, on employment prospects for young people, and on the strength of socializing institutions such as schools and families. The welfare system is not the primary problem. Neither is it capitalism in general, or cultural values as a whole. The root of the problem is not the weakness of family values, but the difficulty that young people have in realizing them. This is specially so during the late stages of price revolutions.

  It need not happen. Our own children and grandchildren have become the victims of historical processes that are now increasingly within our power to control by a common effort—if only we have the collective will and wisdom to do so.

  APPENDIX N

  Price Revolutions and Personal Violence

  During the late twentieth century, when crime was rapidly increasing throughout the Western world, many scholars turned their attention to its history. Much of the learned literature centered on the difficulty of drawing any substantive conclusions from historical records of crime and criminal prosecutions. But for all the deficiencies of the data, substantive patterns began to emerge. The evidence for some of these findings is very robust (more so with each new monograph), and several major historical discoveries have been made. Let us confine our attention mainly to the history of homicide, which presents fewer problems of reporting and source-bias than other crimes. Some of the leading findings are as follows.

  Secular Trends: The Long Decline of Violent Crime

  First, studies mainly in England but also in other nations have found that rates of violent crime were much higher in the Middle Ages than in the modern era—higher by a different order of magnitude. Ten local studies of homicide in thirteenth-century England yield an average annual homicide rate of approximately 20 per 100,000 during the thirteenth century. By comparison, the homicide rate in modern Britain was about I per 100,000 in 1981 and 0.3 per 100,000 in 1951. See T. R. Gurr, “Historical Trends in Violent Crime: A Critical Review of the Evidence,” Crime and Justice: An Annual Review of Research 3 [1981] 313. Population estimates are problematic here, but not so much so as to undercut the main conclusion.

  Second, many studies of later historical periods have made the concomitant discovery of a very long secular decline in violent crime through the early modern era. In the English counties of Kent, Surrey, Sussex and Essex, recorded rates of homicide moved decisively downward. They were approximately 6 or 7 per 100,000 in the mid-sixteenth century, 2 or 3 in the mid-eighteenth century, and 1 in the mid-twentieth century. See J. S. Cockburn, “Patterns of Violence in English Society: Homicides in Kent, 1560–1985,” Past and Present 130 [1991] 70–106; J. M. Beattie, “The Pattern of Crime in England, 1660–1800,” Past and Present 62 (1974) 47–95; A. A. Sharpe, “Domestic Homicide in Early Modern England,” Historical Journal 24 (1981) 34; Joel Samaha, Law and Order in Historical Perspective: The Case of Elizabethan Essex (New York, 1974), 20.

  This long secular decline in homicide is not an artifact of measurement. It runs counter to the improvement of recordkeeping, and to the growing intolerance of personal violence. It is also diametrically opposed to the widespread belief of sociologists and criminologists in the mid-twentieth century that high crime rates are an artifact of modernity.

  Trend Reversals: Four Crime Waves in the Past Millennium

  Yet another important pattern has also emerged from the data. This long downward trend in personal violence was continuous, but not constant. Four times it reversed during the past eight centuries, in strong and sustained countertendencies that continued for many years. We have been fated to live through one of these counter-movements. Personal violence ceased falling and rose sharply to a peak during the early fourteenth century, the early seventeenth century, the late eighteenth century, and the late twentieth century. See Lawrence Stone, “Interpersonal Violence in English Society,” Past and Present 101 (1983) 26–31.

  In England, the first and greatest of these four crime waves happened during the crisis of the fourteenth century. In the years from 1310 to 1348, homicide rates rose to the highest levels in recorded English history, far above the high normal range of the thirteenth century, and higher than they would ever be again. In the town of Oxford, the annual murder rate rose as high as 110 per 100,000 during the fourteenth century. This extraordinary peak was not representative of homicide rates throughout England. Even in our own time, Oxford for all its dreaming spires and serene college quads is still a rough town on Saturday nights when the pubs close and crowds of workers, students, and skinheads collide in the ancient streets. Even so, one study finds that during the dark years of the fourteenth century, medieval Oxford was approximately a hundred times more dangerous than the modern town. See Carl I. Hammer, “Patterns of Violence in a Medieval University Town,” Past and Present 78 [1978] 3–23.

  After the crisis of the fourteenth century, homicide rates in England began to fall, and they kept on falling for nearly two centuries (circa 1350–1550). Despite persistent political instability, personal violence greatly declined in this period.

  Then the trend reversed again. From approximately 1550 to 1650, a second great crime wave occurred in England. Murder rates doubled in Kent, trebled in Essex, and multiplied very rapidly in other parts of Britain. They reached their peak during the early seventeenth century.

  Rates of personal violence began to fall again in a long decline that continued through the late seventeenth century to approximately 1730. This downward movement was interrupted during the 1690s, when homicides and other crimes rose very sharply. This was a short surge rather than a new secular trend. It soon subsided, and rates of violent crime resumed their long fall.

  Figure 5.09 summarizes many studies of homicide in England. It finds evidence of a long secular decline in personal violence. This trend was interrupted by strong upward surges in the fourteenth, sixteenth and twentieth centuries; by a more moderate rise in the eighteenth century; and by smaller and short-lived increases in other periods of stress (1680s, 1860s, etc.). Little evidence exists for the period from 1350 to 1530.

  The many problems of source-bias in the evidence are discussed in Ted R. Gurr, “Historical Trends in Violent Crime: A Critical Review of the Evidence,” Crime and Justice 3 (1981) 295–352, the first attempt to draw this material together. Population estimates are also full of difficulty, especially for the Middle Ages.

  Other general studies reach similar conclusions as to level and trend. All stress the long decline, and also note (as did Gurr) strong upward surges in the fourteenth, sixteenth and twentieth centuries. See Lawrence Stone, “Interpersonal Violence in English Society, 1300–1983,” Past&Present 102 (1983) 206–215; J. A Sharpe, “The History of Violence in England: Some Observations,” Past & Present 108 (1985) 216–54.

  Specific studies include James B. Given, Society and Homicide in Thirteenth-Century England (Stanford, 1977); J. S. Cockburn, “Patterns of Violence in English Society: Homicides in Kent, 1560–1985,” Past&Present 130 (1991)70–106); Joel Samaha, Law and Order in Historical Perspective: The Case of Elizabethan Essex (New York, 1974); V. A C. Gatrell, “The Decline of Theft and Violence in Victorian and Edwardian England,” in Gatrell, et al., Crime and the Law (London, 1980), 342–45.

  An excellent survey and bibliography of the very large literature is J. A. Sharpe, “The History of Crime in England, c. 1300–1914, An Overview of Recent Publications,” British Journal of Criminology 28 (1988) 254–67.

  A third crime wave followed in the eighteenth century. It was not as strong as other upward movements had been, but it was clearly evident
in homicide rates, and more visible in respect to other crimes. In Staffordshire, indictments for theft increased sixfold from the 1760s to the 1790s. In Wiltshire, prosecutions for violations of the game laws multiplied by a factor of seven from the 1760s to the 1790s. See J. S. Cockburn, ed., Crime in England, 1550–1800 (Princeton, 1977), 226; Douglas Hay, “War, Dearth and Theft in the Eighteenth Century: The Record of the English Courts,” Past and Present 95 (1982) 125.

  This surge reached its climax in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, then reversed. By 1830, rates of violent crime were falling in England, and in many nations. This decline, once begun, continued with a few interruptions through the Victorian era and well into the early twentieth century. It persisted as late as 1930 in Stockholm, 1940 in Sydney and Chicago, 1950 in London, and 1960 in Calcutta.

  In the mid-twentieth century, a fourth crime wave began, and rapidly overswept most nations throughout the world. Dates varied in detail, but crime rates were rising everywhere by 1960, and surged to very high levels after 1970. The magnitude of this increase was very large. Homicide rates in some American cities approached the highest levels of the fourteenth century. In 1991, homicides per 100,000 population were approximately 5 in St. Paul, 8 in Seattle, 20 in Boston, 30 in New York, 40 in Baltimore, 50 in Atlanta, 60 in Detroit, 70 in New Orleans, and 80 in Washington. So dangerous were the streets of the nation’s capital that it was not safe to walk Pennsylvania Avenue between the White House and the Capitol after dark. In 1991, the most powerful nation in the world was unable to keep order within a few hundred yards of the presidential mansion (Statistical Abstract of the United States [1993] table 303).