The Geography of Marriage

Regional variations in age at first marriage in Sweden, 1870–1900

Bibliographic Data

ID5778877
AuthorsChrister Lundh (0000-0002-8672-9518, corresponding author)
Year2013
Volume38
Issue3
Pages318-343
Publication date2013-06-14
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueScandinavian Journal of History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0346-8755 • E-ISSN: 1502-7716
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/03468755.2013.804003
OpenAlexW2126364559
LanguageEN
Citations received8
References cited36

While some geographical surveys on marriage behaviour concern general marriage patterns and family systems, there are other discussions on regional variations in marriage within specific countries. This article belongs to the latter tradition, charting the regional differences in ages at marriage in Sweden from 1870 to 1900, and exploring potential determinants of the regional variation. The study builds on Sundbärg's division of Sweden into three main demographic regions, the subsequent Swedish research, and the historical-demographic studies on the determinants of marriage. The results do not fit perfectly into Sundbärg's geography but find a basic divide between the west and east/north of Sweden, mean ages at first marriage being one to one-and-a-half years higher in the west. Social norms and socioeconomic structure seem to have influenced the timing of marriage. At county level, family farming and crowding/competition over land and tenure were typically associated with later marriages, while commercial agriculture and a more diverse economy were correlated with a lower average marriage age. Also, in counties where real wages were higher, marriages usually took place earlier. Finally, results indicate that counties characterized by more secular and tolerant values were on average associated with earlier marriages. Keywords: age at marriageJohn Hajnalmarriage pattern Acknowledgements The author acknowledges financial support from the Swedish Council for Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSFR) for the research project 'Age at Marriage in Sweden, 1750-1900. Trends and Regional Variations' and from Riksbankens Jubileumsfond for the research project 'Swedish Wages in Comparative Perspective, 1860-2008'. Notes 1 Malthus, An Essay on the Principles of Population; Le Play, 'Les Ouvriers Européens'; Westermarck, The History of Human Marriage. 2 Hajnal, 'European Marriage Patterns in Perspective'. 3 Kerzer and Hogan, 'Reflections on the European Marriage Pattern'; Lynch, 'The European Marriage Pattern'; Reher, 'Family Ties in Western Europe'; Saito, 'Two Kinds of Stem Family System?'; Saito, 'The Third Pattern of Marriage'; Skinner, 'Family Systems'; Hajnal, 'Two Kinds of Pre-Industrial'; Laslett, 'Family and Household'; Macfarlane, The Origins of English Individualism; Todd, The Explanation of Ideology; Wrigley and Schofield, The Population History of England. See Thornton, Reading History Sideways for an overview of this literature. 4 Moor and Luiten van Zanden, 'Girl Power'; Macfarlane, The Origins of English Individualism. 5 In his 1965 paper, Hajnal defined western Europe as west of an imaginary line from Trieste to Petrograd, in contrast to eastern Europe (and the rest of the world); Hajnal, 'European Marriage Patterns', 101. However, in his 1982 paper, Hajnal referred to the north-west of Europe, consisting of the British Isles, the Low Countries, the German-speaking area, northern France and the Scandinavian countries, including Iceland but excluding Finland; Hajnal, 'Two Kinds of Pre-Industrial', 449-50. 6 Hajnal, 'Two Kinds of Pre-Industrial', 452. 7 The simple household formation rule prescribes neolocal residence of one conjugal unit, the nuclear family, eventually also including servants and lodgers. The joint household formation rule prescribes co-residence of the new conjugal unit with other conjugal units, e.g. a parental couple or married siblings. 8 Hajnal, 'European Marriage Patterns', 132-3; Schofield, 'The Relationship Between Demographic Structure and Environment', 151-2; Wrigley, 'Marriage, Fertility and Population Growth', 183; Hajnal, 'Two Kinds of Pre-industrial', 451-3. 9 Laslett, 'Family and Household'. 10 Gaskin, 'Age At First Marriage'; Lynch, 'The European Marriage Pattern'; Smith, 'The People of Tuscany'; Laslett, 'Family and Household'; Reher, 'Family Ties'; Moring, 'Nordic Family Patterns'. 11 Saito, 'Two Kinds of Stem Family System?'; Saito, 'The Third Pattern'; Szoltysek, 'Central European Household'; Szoltysek, 'The Genealogy of Eastern European Difference'. 12 Woods and Hinde, 'Nuptiality and Age At Marriage'; Hayami and Kurosu, 'Regional Diversity'; Moring, 'Nordic Family Patterns'; Derosas et al., 'Between Constraints and Coercion'. 13 Malthus, An Essay on the Principles of Population. 14 Wrigley and Schofield, The Population History of England; Galloway, 'Basic Patterns in Annual Variations'. 15 Wrigley, 'Marriage, Fertility and Population Growth', 183. 16 Ehmer, 'Marriage', 287-91; Hajnal, 'Two Kinds of Pre-Industrial'; Lundh, 'Swedish Marriages'; Dribe and Lundh, 'Retirement as a Strategy for Land Transmission'. 17 Lundh, 'Swedish Marriages', 49-51. 18 Lundh, 'The World of Hajnal Revisited', 7. 19 Lundh, 'Swedish Marriages', 38, 46. 20 Lundh, 'The World of Hajnal Revisited', 12. 21 Sundbärg, Ekonomisk-Statistisk Beskrifning, 4-9. 22 Ibid., 6-7. 23 Frykman, 'Sexual Intercourse and Social Norms', 131; Lundh, 'Households and Families', 42-3; Rogers and Nelson, 'The Epidemiologic Transition'; Willner, Det Svaga Könet? 24 Söderberg, Civilisering, Marknad och Våld; Winberg, 'Öst och väst'; Winberg, Hur Västsverige blev Västsvenskt. 25 Winberg, Hur Västsverige blev Västsvenskt, 71-2. Note that Winberg does not include Scania in the western core region (20). 26 Ibid., 70, 89, 96-7. 27 Ibid., 18. 28 Söderberg, Civilisering, Marknad och Våld, 38-9. 29 Ibid., 38-9, 204-5, 210. 30 Ibid., 151-2, 155, 163, 185-7. 31 See Figure 2 for details. 32 Hajnal, 'Age At Marriage', Appendix III, 129-31. 33 For 1900, the SMAM estimates are compared with the average ages of those who actually married during that year, according to the official population statistics (BiSOS. A. Befolkningsstatistik. Statistiska Central-Byråns underdåniga berättelse för år 1900. Första afdelningen, Table 7). The deviation was 2-3%, the SMAM mostly being larger than the arithmetic mean. The correlation between the two measures was 88% for women and 91% for men. Given that SMAM and the arithmetic mean are two different measures that normally differ, my conclusion from this is that migration causes rather minor problems when estimating SMAM for the rural parishes in the counties. 34 The official population statistics that report the average age at first marriage for Sweden as a whole for this period provide the same picture, although the female decrease is somewhat smaller, from 27.1 in the 1870s to 26.4 in the 1900s (Historisk statistik, Table 32, 103). 35 Westermarck, The History of Human Marriage; Goody, 'Comparing Family Systems'; Goody, The European Family; Wolf, 'Europe and China'; Malthus, An Essay on the Principles of Population; Habakkuk, 'Family Structure and Economic Change'; Hajnal, 'European Marriage Patterns'; Hajnal, 'Two Kinds of Pre-Industrial'; Wrigley and Schofield, The Population History of England. 36 The view on values is linked to the basic idea of the World Value Index (Inglehart, Modernization and Postmodernization). In societies characterized by religious/traditional values, religion is important and parent-child ties, authority, traditional family values and absolute standards are emphasized. Societies characterized by secular/rational values emphasize the opposite principles (Inglehart and Welzel, Modernization). 37 Data are from the censuses of 1870, 1880, 1890 and 1900 (see Table 4). Unfortunately the censuses do not report separate figures for the rural and urban county populations; data are only reported for the total county population and for the bigger cities. Here, the number of live births and illegitimate births in 11 cities has been subtracted from the total for the county in which each of the cities in question are located; this procedure reduced the total number of urban illegitimate births by 75-80% (including Stockholm city). The remaining numbers of urban live births and illegitimate births were distributed between the counties based on the size of the urban county population (minus the population of the 11 bigger cities), and were subtracted from the total county figures. Thus the proportion of illegitimate births is estimated as the percentage of births out of wedlock in relation to the total number of live births in the mean rural population. 38 Winberg, Hur Sverige blev Västsvenskt, 96-7; Söderberg, Civilisering, Marknad och Våld, 164-70; Frykman, Horan i Bondesamhället, 72-7; Ohlander, Kärlek, Död och Frihet, 67-9, 91-2. 39 Lundh, 'Swedish Marriages', 24-32; Frykman, 'Sexual Intercourse', 144; Wikman, Die Einleitung der Ehe, 346-84. 40 Wikman, Die Einleitung der Ehe, 189; Frykman, Horan i bondesamhället, 181-8; Gaunt, Familjeliv. 41 Winberg, Hur Västsverige blev Västsvenskt, 70; Söderberg, Civilisering, Marknad och Våld, 24-7. 42 Frykman, 'Sexual Intercourse', 146. 43 For local populations in Malmöhus and Kristianstad county, see Dribe and Lundh, 'Marriage in Nineteenth Century Sweden', Table 7.4; for local populations in Södermanland and Kopparberg county, see Kälvemark, 'Illegitimacy and Marriage', Table 14.6. 44 For local studies of Stockholm city or Jämtland county, see Matovic, 'The Stockholm Marriage'; Kälvemark, 'Illegitimacy and Marriage'. For a discussion of the context and interpretation of illegitimacy, see also Frykman, 'Sexual Intercourse', 143-4; Mark, 'Illegitimacy, Propriety, Marriage and Property', 129-33; Frykman, 'Careless Love?', 140-3. 45 Data come from the official agrarian statistics for the years 1870, 1880, 1890 and 1900 (see Table 4). The number of farms and crofts is positioned in relation to the county population size by calculating the number of farmsteads and crofts per 1,000 people in the rural county population. 46 Data were gathered from the occupational tables in the censuses 1870, 1880, 1890 and 1900, restricted to rural areas (see Table 4). Counted here are male and female workers and helpers who were not farmers or crofters (or similar), exclusive of domestic servants, wives without occupational title, and other family members in the household. The number of agrarian jobs is per 1,000 people in the rural county population. 47 Data were gathered from the occupational tables in the censuses 1870, 1880, 1890 and 1900, restricted to rural areas (see Table 4). Counted here are male and female workers and helpers in all occupations outside agriculture, exclusive of domestic servants, wives without occupational title, and other family members in the household. The number of non-agrarian jobs is per 1,000 people in the rural county population. (Note that data are for rural areas only.) 48 Data are from the official agrarian statistics (see Table 4). 49 As an example, the correlation between the annual earnings of a farm servant (cash plus in kind payments) and a day labourer was 90% (measured by average earnings for the Swedish counties in 1900). 50 Prado, 'A Regional Cost-of-Living Index'. 51 The net external migration rate is the number of immigrants minus the number of emigrants per 1,000 people in the mean county population; separate figures for rural and urban municipalities are not available in the censuses. 52 External net migration rate is for the 10-year period preceding a census. 53 Söderberg, Civilisering, Marknad och Våld; Winberg, Hur Västsverige blev Västsvenskt

Division of labour · Regional variation · Family Dynamics and Relationships · Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics · Intergenerational Family Dynamics and Caregiving