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Age at Marriage in England from the late Seventeenth to the nineteenth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

R. B. Outhwaite
R. B. Outhwaite
Affiliation:
University of Leicester
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In the two centuries after 1700 there occurred upwards of twenty million marriages in England and Wales. It is perhaps forgivable, therefore, that this paper has about it the air of an interim report. It might be thought doubly foolish for an individual, and in this field a professedly amateur investigator, to embark upon any enquiry into past demographic behaviour when there exists that formidable, professional task force, the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure. At the last count it had within its lockers, for example, ‘aggregate analyses’ of over 550 English parishes. To provide information about the ages at which people married, however, the Cambridge Group appears to be relying primarily upon ‘family reconstitution’ techniques. It is not necessary to explain these techniques or to describe the remarkable light they have shed on the vital events of the past. With such tools the Cambridge Group have not only crept literally between the sheets of history; its individual members have not been abashed at publishing their preliminary findings. Yet obscurity remains and with it the thought that family reconstitution may not prove entirely adequate to the insistent demands for more information on when and why people married. For the undertaking of full family reconstitution both registration and record survival have to be good, and the method is undermined where there is a great deal of migration, albeit temporary or permanent. Unfortunately many of the most interesting demographic questions revolve around urban behaviour, and town records may be deficient on many of these counts, especially in that vital and perplexing period from about 1780 to 1840.

Type
Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 23 , January 1973 , pp. 55 - 70
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1973

References

1 I wish to thank Mr Gareth Rees for this calculation and to express my gratitude also to the Research Board of the University of Leicester for the financial help extended to me.

2 ‘News from the Cambridge Group‘, Local Population Studies, v (1970), p. 7Google Scholar.

3 See, for example, Laslett, P., The World We Have Lost (London, 2nd edn, 1971)Google Scholar; Wrigley, E. A., Population and History (London, 1969)Google Scholar; and Schofield, R. S., ‘Historical Demography: Some Possibilities and Some Limitations’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 5th series, xxi (1971), pp. 119–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar. ‘Aggregate Analysis’ and ‘Family Reconstitution’ are described at length in An Introduction to English Historical Demography, ed. Eversley, D. E. C., Laslett, P. and Wrigley, E. A. (London, 1966)Google Scholar.

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7 Ibid., p. 436.

8 See, for example, the statements on these themes in Davis, K. and Blake, J., ‘Social Structure and Fertility: An Analytical Framework’, Economic Development and Cultural Change, iv (1955–1956), pp. 211–35Google Scholar; Davis, K., ‘Statistical Perspective on Marriage and Divorce’ and Hajnal, J., ‘The Marriage Boom’, in Demographic Analysis, ed. J. J. Spengler and O. D. Duncan (Glencoe, 1956), pp. 243–55 and 220–42Google Scholar; Goode, W. J., World Revolution and Family Patterns (New York, 1963), chapter 2Google Scholar; de Walle, E. van, ‘Marriage and Marital Fertility', Daedalus (Spring 1968), pp. 486–501Google Scholar.

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13 All references to ‘average’ ages at marriage hereafter refer to the arithmetic mean. Although it may not always be the most appropriate measure of central tendency it is the one encountered most frequently in the literature.

14 These figures are to be found in the Fourth, Twentieth and the Thirtieth to the Sixty-Second Annual Reports of the Registrar General of Births, Deaths and Marriages in England.

15 Fifty-Ninth Annual Report of the Registrar General (H[ouse of] C[ommons], 1897, xxi, p. 735), pp. ix–xiiiGoogle Scholar.

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18 Compare, for example, tables 2 and 3 in Wrigley, , ‘Family Limitation …’, pp. 86–87Google Scholar, and see also Razzell's, P. E. ‘Note’ in Local Population Studies, ii (1969), pp. 40–43Google Scholar.

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21 In the ways deployed by Razzell (note 20 above) and byHabakkuk, , Population Growth and Economic Development, pp. 36–37Google Scholar.

22 Fourth Annual Report of the Registrar General (H.C. 1842, xix, p. 441), p. 7Google Scholar.

23 Those appearing to argue that the occupational structure had some real significance for marriage ages would include: Tawney, R. H., The Agrarian Problem of the Sixteenth Century (London, 1912), pp. 104–6, n. 3Google Scholar; Chambers, J. D., The Vale of Trent 1670–1800 (Economic History Review, Supplement no. 3, 1957), pp. 51–53Google Scholar; Habakkuk, , Population Growth and Economic Development since 1750, pp. 35–46Google Scholar; Krause, , ‘Some Neglected Factors …’, pp. 530–31Google Scholar; Loschky, and Krier, , op. cit., pp. 429–48Google Scholar. These arguments are denied at one or a number of points in the chain of reasoning by McKeown and Brown, Razzell and Drake (see above, note 11).

24 The Leicestershire cases were taken from the card index to the marriage bonds and allegations of the Archdeaconry of Leicester, the Archives Department, Leicester Museum. The other cases are from: Allegations for Marriage Licences in the Archdeaconry of Sudbury, ed. Bannerman, W. B. (Harleian Soc. Publications, lxix and lxx, London, 1918–1919)Google Scholar; vol. iii of Paver's Marriage Licences, ed. Clay, J. W. (Yorkshire Archaeological Soc, xlvi, 1912)Google Scholar; Abstracts of Nottinghamshire Marriage Licences, ed. Blagg, T. M. and Wadsworth, F. A. (British Record Soc, lviii and Ix, 1930 and 1935)Google Scholar; Abstracts of the Bonds and Allegations for Marriage Licences in the Archdeaconry Court of Nottingham, 1754–1770, ed. Blagg, T. M. (Thoroton Soc. Record Series, x, 1947)Google Scholar; Allegations for Marriage Licences issued by the Commissary Court of Surrey, ed. Bax, A. R. (Norwich, 1907)Google Scholar; Calendar of Sussex Marriage Licences, ed. Penfold, E. W. D. (Sussex Record Society, xxv and xxvi, 1917 and 1919)Google Scholar. The mean ages at marriage of bachelors and spinsters in each of these samples are given below. In the Yorkshire sample widowers were not always differentiated.

On the male side, ignoring (for reasons explained below, p. 68) the two early-nineteenth-century samples, the closeness of the figures is immediately apparent, not only to each other, but also to Laslett's average of 26–9 for some Canterbury licences, 1619–60, and indeed to the Registrar General's national averages. The averages on the female side, again disregarding the early-nineteenth-century figures, support the conclusion reached earlier that such figures rarely drop below 24 and rarely rise above 26. Again the similarity with the Registrar General's returns might be noted. But see below, p. 68.

25 Attention is here confined to the ordinary ecclesiastical licence and not to the Archbishop of Canterbury's special licence. On the distinctions between them seeTwentieth Annual Report of the Registrar General (H.C. 1859, session 2, xii, p. 1), p. ivGoogle Scholar.

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28 By 5 & 6 Wm & M, c. 21.

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30 See, for example, Fourth Annual Report of the Registrar General (H.C. 1842, xix, p. 441), p. 17Google Scholar.

31 National Index of Parish Registers, ed. Steel, D. J. (London, 1968), i, pp. 227–28Google Scholar.

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34 Stone, L., ‘Literacy and Education in England, 1640–1900’, Past and Present, xlii (1969), p. 106Google Scholar.

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37 Bannerman, , op. cit., p. 215Google Scholar; Card Index to Archdeaconry of Leicester marriage bonds, Leicester Museum.

38 Twenty-Seventh Annual Report of the Registrar General (H.C. 1866, xix, p. 1), p. viiiGoogle Scholar.

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40 See above, note 38.

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42 Cited in Jeaffreson, J. C., Brides and Bridals (London, 1872), ii, p. 179Google Scholar.

43 Cited in Howard, G. E., A History of Matrimonial Institutions (Chicago and London, 1904), i, p. 457Google Scholar.

44 R. B. Sheridan, The Rivals, Act 5, scene 1.

45 Chambers, , op. cit., p. 50Google Scholar; Blagg, , op. cit., p. viiGoogle Scholar.

46 ‘Reasons for licences to marry’, printed inMcGrath, P., ‘Notes on the History of Marriage Licences’, in Frith, op. cit., pp. xxiv–xxviGoogle Scholar.

47 Blagg, and Wadsworth, , op. cit., p. xiiGoogle Scholar; Bannerman, , op. cit., p. 65Google Scholar.

48 Bannerman, , op. cit., pp. 392Google Scholar, 439. See also ‘Cock’ (p. 402).

49 Cupid's Pupils, p. 145.

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51 Compare, for example, Blagg, , op. cit., p. viiGoogle Scholar, and Razzell, P. E., ‘Statistics and English Historical Sociology’, in The Industrial Revolution, ed. Hartwell, R. M. (Oxford, 1970), pp. 108–9Google Scholar. (There appears to be an error in the relevant Razzell passage: ‘seven’ should read sixteen.) The pessimism of editors may be explained by the fact that most could foresee their value only to genealogists.

52 Cited in Steel, op. cit., p. 58.

53 Forty-Ninth Annual Report of the Registrar General (H.C. 1887, xxiii, p. 1)Google Scholar, pp. vii–viii; Ogle, W., ‘On Marriage-Rates and Marriage-Ages, with Special Reference to the Growth of Population’, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, liii (1890), pp. 253–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Ogle's groups and ages for bachelors and spinsters were (bachelors' ages first): Professional and Independent classes—31.22 and 26.40; Farmers and sons-29.23 and 26.91; Shopkeepers and Shopmen—26.67 and 24.22; Commercial Clerks—26.25 and 24.43; Labourers—25.56 and 23.66; Artisans—25.35 and 23.7°; Shoemakers and Tailors—24.92 and 24.31; Textile hands—24.38 and 23.43; Miners—24.06 and 22.46.

54 Stevenson, T. H. C., ‘The Fertility of Various Social Classes in England and Wales from the Middle of the Nineteenth Century to 1911’, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Ixxxiii (1920), pp. 401–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar and ‘Discussion’, P. 433.

55 If, for example, Gregory King's enumeration of the ages of the population of Lichfield in 1695 is correct, there were 108 bachelors aged 20–39 to 244 spinsters of the same age. SeeGlass, D. V., ‘Gregory King and the Population of England and Wales at the end of the Seventeenth Century’, in Glass and Eversley, op. cit., p. 181Google Scholar.

56 This might determine inter alia whether the parish was ‘open’ or ‘closed’, the ease of obtaining a ‘settlement’, attitudes to squatters, the nature and general administration of poor relief, and the availability of cottages, commons and allotments.

57 Laslett, , op. cit., p. xiiiGoogle Scholar, and ‘Size and Structure of the Household in England over Three Centuries’, Population Studies, xxiii (1969), pp. 199–224Google Scholar.

58 Ogle, , op. cit., p. 269Google Scholar; Twenty-Ninth Annual Report of the Registrar General (H.C. 1867–1868, xix, p. 1), pp. v–viGoogle Scholar.