Marriage is central to understanding historical populations and the family. Not only is marriage the event in the human life cycle which precipitates family formation, but also marriage patterns are the primary surface on which fertility levels are inscribed. Age at marriage and proportion married determine females’ exposure to risk of pregnancy. Since Hajnal demonstrated the primacy of nuptial...

BACKGROUND Research into the causes of the mid-20-century baby boom has concluded that the main proximate cause of the fertility increase during the 1940s was earlier and more universal marriage in the cohorts born after 1910, and that this association between nuptiality trends and fertility was particularly strong in Sweden. OBJECTIVE However, we do not know whether this was a general trend or...

NUPTIALITY plays a significant role in determining the level of fertility and growth rate in a population. The experience of several less developed countries where population growth rates have recently lowered has well demonstrated this effect. An upward shift in nuptiality behaviour has played a crucial role in affecting these changes. In societies where reproduction is primarily confined with...

Mexico shares with most other Latin American countries a nuptiality system that is characterized by the coexistence of marriage and cohabitation. This dual nuptiality model (Castro-Martín 2002 ), with origins in pre-hispanic times, has been present for centuries. Despite the fact that cohabitation survived in Mexico with different intensity between regions and among several indigenous populatio...