AEA Papers and Proceedings 2018, 108: 353–357 https://doi.org/10.1257/pandp.20181084

Cousin Is Not Choice: Muslim Marriage and Underdevelopment†

By Lena Edlund*

The Middle East has much going for it. It over women, but also the old over the young is strategically located connecting three conti- Edlund and Lagerlöf 2006 . nents. Its ­oil-rich countries suffer no shortage ( Second, the paper provides) a novel expla- of capital. Its population is young and in many nation for why marriage is common in cases well educated. Still, the economic perfor- the Muslim world rates have mance of the Middle East has been less than been estimated in the( 20–60 percent range, e.g., stellar, something it shares with the Muslim Hamamy 2012 .1 While the power to consent world at large. The commonality is curious con- to marriage lies) with the bride’s guardian typi- sidering the varied natural conditions within its cally her , the resulting marriage payment( realm. Stretching from sub-Saharan­ Africa to mahr is hers, a) split bill that encourages cousin the islands of Indonesia, it can claim the world’s marriage, I propose. largest desert, highest mountain range, and the may be viewed as a form river plains of the fertile crescent. of barter, the bride giver’s reward is an equiv- While European colonial history or more alent woman in return. When the giver is the recent events may have done it few favors, the bride’s father, the woman given in exchange is failure to keep up is longstanding Lewis 2002; presumably more valued by a younger and less Kuran 2011 . Not tied to a particular( circum- married man, for instance his . Thus a system stance, time) period, or geographic region, the can arise in which are committed to a problem appears endemic suggesting that its bridal pool in exchange for ’ rights to draw source originates from a common denominator. from said pool. Cousin marriage is a short step Specifically, this paper points to classical away. Muslim which denies women the Cousin marriage diverting resources from right to decide their own marriage. While men the bride to her male kin, thus undoing a prin- are free to make their own marriage decisions, cipal improvement for women introduced under women are subject to guardianship. That is, —the bride being the designated owner of women marry by parental consent as in arranged the mahr—has to the best of my knowledge not marriage regimes. Marriage that is half free and been considered previously. half arranged may be all one thing or all the Third, this marriage system may handicap other. Which one is it then? economic growth. When women decide whom This paper makes three points. First, it argues and whether to marry, men jockey among them- that classical Muslim law produces a con- selves to deliver what women want. In cousin sent regime that effectively amounts to parental marriage, by contrast, men marry by guarding consent, despite men’s freedom to marry. Thus, their and staying on the right side of the marriage regime does not only favor men their . The predicted societies are starkly different. In one, women have high status and is celebrated. In the other, women are reduced to male property and conformity * Department of Economics, Columbia University, and loyalty are prized. Societal capacity for 420 W 118th Street, 1022 IAB, New York, NY 10027 email: [email protected] . I thank Douglas Almond and Erica( Field for valuable comments.) † Go to https://doi.org/10.1257/pandp.20181084 to visit the article page for additional materials and author disclo- 1 The coefficient between is that of sure statement. second or higher. 353 354 AEA PAPERS AND PROCEEDINGS MAY 2018

­self-sustaining, innovation driven growth may combined with no minimum age of marriage, differ accordingly. supports a culture in which it is a father’s right to marry off daughters. I. Classical Muslim Family Law Sharia law is Islamic canonical law based on the teachings of the and the traditions of Marriage, according to classical law, is a the Prophet. It was formulated in the first cen- transactional and hierarchical relationship. The turies of Islam, a formative period which cul- groom is required to pay the bride a mahr, part minated in the ninth century. In the nineteenth of which can be deferred paid at the dissolution century, modernization demands in the Muslim of the marriage . The marriage( payment is fol- world led to the of Western legal sys- lowed by the bride’s) taking up residence with tems but reform of family law was considered the . The husband owes the main- ­un-Islamic and exempted. tenance, and the wife owes the husband conju- Recent attempts to bring family law in line gal society and obedience. By this is typically with, say, the Universal Declaration of Human meant that the wife should grant the husband Rights UDHR have been met with equally solid sexual access and not leave the husband’s domi- resistance( on )similar grounds ­Mir-Hosseini cile without his consent. et al. 2013 . Change would require( recognition The Muslim marriage contract requires the of marriage) by individual consent only United consent of the groom. By contrast, the bride’s Nations 1948, article 16 , a fundamental( chal- consent is neither necessary nor sufficient.2 The lenge to classical law’s placing) of women under operative consent is that of her guardian, wali. male guardianship. The rights of the wali are vested with in order In sum, classical law gives the father the of priority the father, grandfather,­ or other( male power to decide his ’s marriage, but relative. Importantly,) a father or ­grandfather also designates the bride the owner of the mar- can force a to marry. That is,( he can arrange) riage payment mahr. All this power to no avail? her marriage without her consent Esposito and Cue cousin marriage. DeLong-Bas 2001, p. 16 , ( ) II. Cousin Marriage A distinguishing feature of Islamic law is the power that it bestows upon the The prevalence of cousin marriage in the father or grandfather, who can contract a Muslim world stands out Bittles and Black valid marriage for minors that cannot be 2010; Hamamy 2012 , in( particular that annulled at puberty. between children of ) Korotayev 2000 In Hussain and Bittles( 1998 and). Further, even adult women cannot marry Saudi Arabia ( el-Hazmi et al. 1995 , the rate) of without the consent of their wali. Three of the consanguineous( marriage3 has been) found to four Sunni schools are of the opinion that the approach 60 percent; in other Muslim countries, guardian has the sole authority with respect to rates fall in the ­20–50 percent range.4 the marriage of his sane and major female ward Frazer 1919 noted the similarity between if she is a virgin. Only if she has been previously cousin marriage( )and marriage by barter, a form of married is her consent also required alongside exchange favored in materially simple environ- that of the guardian’s . ( ments such as those of Australian Aboriginals. Only the Hanafi) school allows an adult Absent other means of exchange, a man pays woman to contract her own marriage, but this for his bride by providing an equivalent female right is undermined by two provisions. First, in return. For practical reasons, sisters are at the wali can dissolve an “unsuitable” marriage. Second, the above power of the father or guard- ian to contract a minor daughter in marriage( by force) holds even in the Hanafi school. This right, 3 Spouses are second cousins or closer. 4 Its extensive practice through the has lead to elevated levels of autosomal recessive diseases and con- genital anomalies, consequences that are obscured by high 2 Two possible factors explaining why the marriage con- mortality morbidity or ­under-served environments, e.g., tract has resisted change. Corry 2014/ . ( ) VOL. 108 MUSLIM MARRIAGE AND UNDERDEVELOPMENT 355 high risk of being used thus.5 If the exchange of Still, cousin marriage may be common sisters is possible between two unrelated men, enough to support another pervasive feature of would not make this trade even more Muslim society: the importance of the hamula, feasible, he observed. “a group of descendants from common ances- Still, why would materially more advanced tor, usually from five to seven generations, liv- societies such as those of the Muslim world resort ing side-by-side­ in a rural or even urban area.” to cousin marriage? The answer, I propose, lies Lewis and Churchill 2009, p. 3 . Further, in the father’s right to decide a daughter’s mar- “( members were bound together by) strong ties riage but lacking the right to the resulting mahr. of[ loyalty, reinforced] by the common practice of Faced with this situation, other forms of com- marrying within the hamula, usually cousins” pensation may beckon. For instance, a daughter Lewis and Churchill 2009, p. 194 . could be given as a gift to the rich and power- ( Cousin marriage among advanced) societies is ful in return for patronage.6 But ­brides-as-gifts not unique to the Muslim world. European aris- has sharply decreasing returns, there are only so tocracy was no stranger to cousin marriage and many powerful men to go around. it could be argued that the aristocracy formed A more common variation might be to have the European equivalent to .7 However, a man give a daughter in marriage against the outside of the landed classes, cousin marriage promise of a bride in return, possibly at a future was rare and obligations toward kin fell off rap- date. The ability to enforce such promises can idly once outside of the . In be challenging and here family can come in Muslim society, by contrast, expectations of clan handy. On average, have equally many loyalty are commonplace. As a result, sons and daughters. By promising daughters to a and conformism is valorized over meritocracy ­extended-family bridal pool, and allowing sons and independence. Guardianship over daughters to draw from the same, a system of exchange may explain the difference: it affords even poor can be maintained in which daughters’ marriage men leverage over sons and nephews. market value is captured by fathers and brothers. That cousin marriage comes with lower mahr III. Growth is a well-known stylized fact. Existing explana- tions have viewed this as reflecting a more ben- In its first 600 years or so, the Muslim world eficial marriage to the bride. By marrying in the did very well. Then it lost momentum. Medieval family, or exchanging sisters, a web of connec- Europe, on the other hand, powered on. By the tions protect women against —the in-laws­ late Middle Ages, Europe was ahead Mokyr are family or married to family Jacoby and 1990 —a lead it has maintained since. ( Mansuri 2010; Do, Iyer, and Joshi( 2013 . This Thus,) the story of the Muslim world’s lag- paper offers a less benign interpretation. )Sharia ging behind is equally that of European ascent, makes the woman the owner of the mahr; male the latter which has been well chronicled. Still guardianship—via cousin marriage—erodes its unanswered, however, is why Europe man- value. aged to maintain sustained, innovation driven This explanation of cousin marriage assumes growth. Economic historians concur that Europe that fathers are scrupulous enough to not accept was more accepting of new ideas, risk taking, side payments, while all the same seeking to and individual enterprise Landes 1969; Jones benefit from a daughter’s marriage, assumptions 1988; Mokyr 1990; Gorodnichenko( and Roland which can be questioned: an unscrupulous father 2011 . But, the origins of this more independent can accept a side payment for which the rules and )iconoclastic mentality—individualism in of the mahr need not apply; a scrupulous father short—remains a holy grail of sorts. may exercise his rights in a way that does not This paper points to individual consent result in cousin marriage, etc. After all, cousin in marriage—in place in Europe since Late marriage is not universal. Antiquity , and, lately, East Asia and( Israel—as a condition) for ­productivity-driven sustained

5 Marriage by exchange, or , is in fact barred in Saudi Arabia on the grounds that using a sister as payment for a bride is contrary to the spirit of Islam. 7 Concern for status of in-laws in a highly hierarchical 6 Osama Bin Laden’s sixth wife was a gift from her father. society can result in cousin marriage, e.g., Edlund 1999 . ( ) 356 AEA PAPERS AND PROCEEDINGS MAY 2018 growth. Granted, Muslim guardianship only Tunisia 1957 , Singapore 1965 , and South applies to women and only to marriage. But, in Korea 1977( . ) ( ) the limit, guardianship in marriage is to women Among( these,) Turkey and Tunisia stand out. what slavery is to men. This is so because on Both are Muslim majority and neither ­country the marriage market, women sell and men buy.8 has approached the growth performance of Since the female side has the goods traded, con- the others listed, thus seemingly contradict- trol of that side matters the most. ing the case for consent as a key growth factor. The link from guardianship to growth inhibit- However, unlike their East Asian counterparts, ing gerontocracy can only be a speculation. But neither country has de facto broken with paren- just as young firms are more likely to champion tal consent. For concrete evidence, look no fur- new technology Greenwood and Jovanovic ther than consanguineous marriage—estimated 1999 , the harnessing( of the young mind may rates of which fall in the ­16–65 percent range be critical) for innovation driven growth. Mokyr for Tunisia Ben Halim et al. 2016 and around 1990, pp. 182–183 wrote: 20 percent for( Turkey Koc 2008; Kaplan) et al. ( ) 2016 —numbers hard ( to reconcile with mar- All societies developed to some extent a riage )by individual choice. disapproval of young members who do not conform to existing practices. … The REFERENCES more hostile this attitude, the more likely conformist attitudes will dominate and the Ben Halim, N., S. Hsouna, K. Lasram, I. Rejeb, A. new will be just like the old Walha, F. Talmoudi, H. Messai et al. 2016. “Dif- ones, producing technological stasis. ferential Impact of Consanguineous on Autosomal Recessive Diseases in Tunisia.” IV. Discussion American Journal of Human Biology 28 2 : 171–80. ( ) This paper has argued that by denying women Bittles, A. H., and M. L. Black. 2010. “Consan- individual consent in marriage, Muslim family guinity, Human Evolution, and Complex Dis- law not only deprives women of a fundamental eases.” Proceedings of the National Academy right, but also dulls the initiative and ambition of Sciences of the United States of America 107 of young men by producing a system in which 1 : 1779–86. marriage is preordained, subject to conformity Corry,( ) Peter C. 2014. “Consanguinity and Prev- to clan notions of loyalty. Jones 1988, p. 95 alence Patterns of Inherited Disease in the UK wrote: “The literature concerning( the Ottoman) Pakistani Community.” Human 77 world is especially full of remarks about cultural 1–4 : 207–16. introversion and metaphors of dormancy.” Do,( Quy-Toan,) Sriya Iyer, and Shareen Joshi. The system turns on unmarried females being 2013. “The Economics of Consanguineous committable to the extended-family­ bridal pool, Marriages.” Review of Economics and Statis- giving brothers a direct stake in their sisters’ tics 95 3 : 904–18. chastity and obedience. As self-appointed­ guar- Edlund, Lena.( ) 1999. “Son Preference, Sex Ratios, antors of their sisters’ arranged marriages, broth- and Marriage Patterns.” Journal of Political ers emerge as chief enforcers of the ­so-called Economy 107 6 : 1275–304. honor culture and its ­not-so-honorable killings. Edlund, Lena, and( Evelyn) Korn. 2002. “A Theory Until the twentieth century, individual con- of Prostitution.” Journal of Political Economy sent was largely limited to Western countries. 110 1 : 181–214. Since then, a number of countries have joined Edlund,( )Lena, and Nils-Petter Lagerlöf. 2006. the ranks, including: parental and indi- “Individual versus Parental Consent in Mar- vidual 1898, individual 1947( , Turkey 1923 , riage: Implications for Intra- Israel 1948 , PRC 1950 ,) (1950), Resource Allocation and Growth.” American ( ) ( ) ( ) Economic Review 96 2 : 304–07. el-Hazmi, M. A., A. R. al-Swailem,( ) A. S. Warsy, A. 8 Specifically, rights to children. Absent marriage, there is only one known , the . Paternity presump- M. al-Swailem, R. Sulaimani, and A. A. al-Me- tion makes husband the father of children borne by the wife shari. 1995. “Consanguinity among the Saudi Edlund and Korn 2002 . Arabian Population.” Journal of Medical ( ) VOL. 108 MUSLIM MARRIAGE AND UNDERDEVELOPMENT 357

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