qWhat is the social role of religions? And how can certain beliefs resist our Cartesian mind? For a long time, social sciences have highlighted certain implications of the great monotheistic and moralizing religions. Their edifying principles, the possible observation by an all-powerful god of our most secret actions, and the promise of a better world conditioned by our good actions can facilitate cooperation, economic exchanges and savings and, therefore, promote economic growth. But what about beliefs in the supernatural or astrology? Are they mere frivolities or do they also serve an economic and social function?
A study published on August 5, 2024 (“Astrology and Matrimony: Social Reinforcement of Religious Beliefs on Marriage Matching in Vietnam”, Edoardo Ciscato, Quoc-Anh Do and Kieu-Trang Nguyen) demonstrates not only the social function of astrological beliefs, but also the way in which this social function ensures the very persistence of these beliefs, by ensuring them a self-fulfilling character.
The authors study the case of the Vietnamese horoscope, the Tu Vi, which predicts, in particular, the augural character of marriages. Unlike the Chinese horoscope or Western astrology, there is no good or bad year of birth, nor immutable character traits supposedly associated with an astrological sign. The predictions depend solely on the respective (lunar) year of birth of the spouses and vary from year to year, without imposing a particular age difference. For example, it is a good omen for a man born in 1980 to marry a woman born in 1977, but it is a bad omen for him to marry a woman born in 1983.
Good and bad omens.
The authors first study marriage trends in the population using census data. They establish that astrology does appear to influence unions: there are more auspicious matches and far fewer unfavorable matches (predictions can also be neutral) compared with what would be observed in a random distribution (even conditioned on age and education, two important factors in marriage).
Moreover, an astrologically auspicious couple appears, at the margin, less compatible in education and age. As if the spouses were willing to sacrifice a match in educational level for a better astrological alliance. The authors can also observe a revival of this religious phenomenon after the political opening in 1986 of a communist regime that had tried to eradicate these beliefs since its coming to power (in northern Vietnam since 1954, and in the south since 1975).
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