Conscription drove Egyptian peasants to refuse marriage and childbearing

Evidence

Ultimately, Egyptians, seeing that life had become so unbearable under the new “enlightened” regime of Mehmed Ali because of corvée, taxation, monopolies, imprisonment and, above all, conscription, decided that even if they could bear these atrocities themselves, there was no reason why they should see their own children subjected to the same fate. Thus a new method of resistance developed which reflected the Egyptians’ utter despair: they simply refused to marry and have children. In 1828 Mehmed Ali wrote to the Director of his War Department, Mahmud Bey, telling him that a lot of fellahin were abstaining from marriage in order to avoid seeing their children being subjected to these various government demands, e.g. taxation and imprisonment. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 1355

Categorization

• SEED: Demographic noncooperation as political resistance — a potential essay on how pre-modern populations struck back at states through the only levers they held, marriage and reproduction.
• DEEPTHINKING: Stopping reproduction as a collective response to state violence — a profound inversion where the state’s need for population becomes the population’s bargaining chip, prefiguring modern demographic anxieties.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 1355
• XREF: connects to: Conscription transformed the relation between Egyptian government and governed; Egyptian peasants overwhelmingly resisted conscription despite ideological appeals, via open rebellion; Village shaykhs held the local knowledge conscription depended on and often refused to cooperate. (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• Egyptian peasants strongly resisted conscription into Mehmed Ali’s army. #corroborates (0.70) — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 92
• Egyptian peasants strongly resisted conscription into the modern army #corroborates (0.60)
• Egyptian peasants experienced conscription as oppressive taxation rather than patriotic service #expands (0.50)
• Peasant resistance to conscription catalyzed a new regime of state control #expands (0.40) — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 490