The Black Death, Girl Power, and the Emergence of the European Marriage Pattern in England

This article critiques the debate over the extent to which labor shortages caused by the Black Death and subsequent epidemics empowered women economically, and whether this had significant implications for overall demographic behavior and long-term economic performance. Some historians have argued that after ca. 1350 women in the North Sea region were drawn into the land and labor markets to a far greater extent than women in other parts of Europe, and in particular into employment as single live-in servants, which led to a rise in the average age of women at first marriage and the proportion of women never marrying. This in turn led to the formation of the European Marriage Pattern (EMP), which is associated with fertility restriction and higher levels of household income. The evidence and arguments underpinning this viewpoint are critically evaluated for England, where by 1600 the EMP was certainly established. The extant sources do not enable us to measure the extent of women’s financial gains after the Black Death, or to assess changes in their marital choices. There is no convincing evidence for any rise in the proportion of single female servants in the century after the Black Death or for the existence of the EMP before 1550. Young women did not increase their participation in the land market in order to construct a marriage fund. The article concludes by assessing the possible chronologies of England’s transition to the EMP, and by suggesting new lines of enquiry about structural changes in women’s work during the sixteenth century.