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| Re: HBD -- Farming and Inheritance (937463) | |||
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Re: HBD -- Farming and Inheritance |
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Posted by JayMan on Tue May 1 11:20:59 2012, in response to Re: HBD -- Farming and Inheritance, posted by SMAZ on Tue May 1 10:13:06 2012. >>>>I have a feeling this "egalitarian inheritance" bit applied only to the wealthy landowners, since the average Joe Schmo probably had nothing to bequeath.That makes more sense. Good to know! Obviously, I don't think that the family itself and what went on in the family directly impacted evolution (though it likely did somewhat, if what parents did affected the reproductive success of their offspring, like choosing who to disinherit), but rather that the whole thing is symptomatic of the overall arrangement of society. Living in a nuclear family because your parents are tenant farmers where you can't count on acquiring material goods from them, hence forcing you to go out into the world and make your own way, hoping get enough to rent your own farm, has a big impact on the type of person that succeeds. By using phrases like "egalitarian" or "patriarchal" when referring to perhaps only 1-5% of the population in a "study" presuming to measure the historical genesis of regional and national development/underdevelopment, IQ and its associated causes is something that automatically discredits the study and makes it completely worthless at best and dangerously misinforming at worst. Keep in mind that most Northern Europeans and most East Asians today are descended primarily from the upper classes, because their wealth gave them a huge survival boost. What the nobility did and whatever selective forces they were under has big implications for modern populations. As well, you're seriously underestimating the proportion of people directly participating the prevailing system. Most of the European interior—including much of Northern Italy—had the "stem" family system, where the average Joe farmed his own land, often inheriting it from his parents (depending on if he was the lucky son). Those in the English tenant farming system were in a similar position. Obviously the sharecropoppers in the red areas were directly affected by the system under which they lived. Even in the large estates where farmers were just employees and didn't own anything (the blue areas), selective forces were at work. Presumably, access to mates was governed by being a capable worker (though, I'd imagine, not necessarily a bright one). Since these are the areas mostly outside the Hajnal line, and the areas of reduced average IQ today (southern Spain, southern Italy, Greece), I'd imagine that again we may able to look at selective forces under this system. Obviously, a landless farm hand doesn't have to be anywhere near as bright as farmer who owns/rents the land and has a vested interest in its success. Further, it's in the landlord's interest simply to have more workers, not necessarily better ones, so they may have encouraged marriage and breeding among the help; which may explain the earlier marriage that was customary in these places. Cousin marriage may have been more common there just for that reason (so much easier to just find a cousin to marry rather than go out into the world and woo the right woman). Here's a question, how was life for the average Joe in Southern Italy in these times? What was the traditional farm in Sicily like? |
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