ABSTRACT
World history during the period 1450–1750 was marked particularly by an intensification of global trade, now including the Americas, and the development of new European colonial and maritime power. The early modern period saw tremendous changes in Asia, particularly with expansion of manufacturing economy and the rise of several new empires; but the impacts on sexuality were relatively modest. The expansion of bureaucracy and legal apparatus in China, particularly under the Qing dynasty, produced additional discussion of sexual issues. Urban growth in Japan generated new government measures to regulate, and tax, prostitution. The European-style family contrasted with more common behaviors in Asia and Africa, where women were married early and higher percentages of the population did form families. The early modern sexual surge associated with European colonialism was not a global development, but an Atlantic one. Sexual exploitation of slaves had been a common part of slave systems in many societies. The American system painted these relationships with larger brush.
