Fences

Since I don't have anything better to do at 4:30am except listen to my cat snore - and he does - I'll write about fences. More specifically, I'm trying to figure out why Europeans are so much fonder of fences than Americans. Even the style of fences differ. Europeans have big stone walls that act as fences. In eastern parts, they may be accompanied by barbed wire. The function seems to be the keep prying eyes - and people - out. In America, if people build fences, they generally look nicer and you can almost always see through them. American fences function either for looks or containment. Some of our neighbors have wooden fences that only border the road and wouldn't stop a thing. Our backyard is fenced in so our dogs don't run off.

These are generalities, but from my experience they tend to be true. There are a few reasons why this developed as such. Property laws developed in Europe over the ages. A long time ago, it might have been wise to mark off your somehow, and that somehow would be a fence. Since America imported the English system of law, perhaps they didn't need to be as cautious marking their land. Or perhaps land in America was so abundant relative to population that it was unnecessary to mark your land in this way. But this doesn't explain why the fences are built out of stone and bricks but not wood.

In Koprivshtitsa, someone (either Iori or his mother) told me the reason why fences were so high there. The Bulgarians were under Turkish rule and they didn't much like that. To get the privacy they desired, they had to keep prying Turk eyes out of their yards and out of their business. The tall fences accomplished just this. So perhaps the fences in Europe are so uninviting because they are meant to keep the government's eyes out of their business. Since the US hasn't ever been ruled by any nation other than itself, perhaps the tradition never popped up.

There is the issue of the size of yards. It seems that, even in cities, the average size of a yard is larger in the US than in Europe. I have no data to back this up, but just for fun, let's say it's true. I have seen in some American yards tall fences that seem to be meant for privacy i.e. nude sunbathing. They don't take up the whole yard, but a significant portion of it. If their yard was smaller, would they fence in a smaller portion or would they fence in the same amount and just have less yard exposed? Perhaps Europeans desire a certain amount of outdoor privacy and that amount just happens to be the size of their yard. So it's like Iori suggested to me when I first asked the question. Maybe Europeans just like their privacy and Maybe Americans just like to show off. And just so it's perfectly clear, that's completely paraphrased.

My bet is more on the "keep the government out" theory, which would mean that fence style would differ from region to region depending on certain aspects of the regions history. Maybe the theory would be more aptly named the Political Evolution of Fences.

fence style of a region = g(type of law, sovereign rule, average plot size)

Average plot size is rather self explanatory. Type of law is different. Under Turkish rule, everything belonged to the emperor. Even if you lived and farmed your land, it still belong to the emperor and he could take it on a whim. Just a bit north, there was the Austro-Hungarian empire where property rights were better enforced and protected. You could pretty safely call your land your own. Sovereign rule would indicate whether your region governed itself or was governed by an outside force. This might overlap with type of law a bit, but there's probably enough of a difference.

So this is a rather poorly defined musing on fences, but I think it conveys the general idea. And since it's 5:00 am, I think it's about time to call it quits.