[iguy]

The fairly solid part here is that the west is different, and my understanding is that the divergence in things like family/clan structures dates to early medieval times, in a zone something like London-to-Milan, core europe. Something changed, long before 1500.

The peripheral was different, e.g. Scotland had strong clans until they got kicked out (to Ulster, and thence Appalachia...). And Spain wasn't even christian at this point in time.

That the church did it is less clear, I agree. There are economic arguments too. I guess I'm persuaded that things like suppressing cousin marriage had something to do with it. I'm certainly not suggesting that there's some essential magic attached to the pope! It was core europe that invented Protestantism too... at the same time as Cortez & co were taking the reconquistia to the Incas, with the pope's blessing but a very different culture.