Family breakdown in nineteenth-century Netherlands: divorcing couples in The Hague.

This is an analysis of divorce trends in the Netherlands in the second half of the nineteenth century. "Use was made of a case-control research design in which the social characteristics of all marriages which ended in divorce were compared with those of a random sample from the marriages which ended in widowhood. The author analyzed a group of 2,300 marriages contracted in The Hague from their inception until their dissolution by death or divorce. All migrants were followed to their new place of residence. Multivariate (proportional hazards) analysis showed that the highest probability of divorce was found among persons who had already gone through a divorce before. Other factors related to divorce were high mobility, low ages at marriage, and large age and religious differences between spouses. Higher social classes had relatively high divorce risks."