European dynastic marriage made whole populations transferable like property.
Evidence
I do not mean merely the inheritance and sale of private property in land in the usual sense. More important was the European practice of political transfers of lands, with their populations, via dynastic marriages. Princesses, on marriage, brought their husbands duchies and petty principalities, and these transfers were formally negotiated and ‘signed.’ The tag Bella gerant alii, tu, felix Austria, nube! would have been inconceivable for any state in precolonial Asia. — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 696
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: Assimilation led to conversion far more often than to mixed marriage; Historic marriages can reshape national power structures. — Winston Churchill, A History of the English-Speaking…, 313; Family structure mirrors and reproduces national authority in Europe (+4 more)
Related
- Assimilation led to conversion far more often than to mixed marriage (similarity 0.80)
- Widowed noblewomen had to remarry instantly to hold their land (similarity 0.80)
- Historic marriages can reshape national power structures. (similarity 0.78)
Broader Connections
- Europe’s high nobility was highly mobile across national borders
#corroborates(0.82) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 500 - Historic marriages can reshape national power structures.
#expands(0.78) — Winston Churchill, A History of the English-Speaking…, 313 - Family structure mirrors and reproduces national authority in Europe
#expands(0.75) - The Revolution let love override customary paternal marriage authority in Algeria
#complicates(0.72) — Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonialism, 381