The Influence of Modern City Life on Marriage in Ghent at the Turn of the Twentieth Century: Cultural Struggle and Social Differentiation in Demographic Behavior

Abstract

At the turn of the twentieth century, Ghent became a modern industrial city. The new societal conditions undermined old behavioral patterns. In a process of cultural interaction based on strategies of distinction, disciplining, conformism, and trendsetting, the elite, the middle class, and the lower class adopted a new marriage pattern. Social differentiation, however, remained strong. First, strong group boundaries on the marriage market, between the lower class on one side and the middle class and the elite on the other, were complemented by intensified distinction strategies by the elite and the middle class, as is shown in both their selection of marriage witnesses and their use of French. Second, in all groups, a decline in the mean age at marriage and an increasing proportion of same-age marriages marked the rise of more egalitarian relationships and the increasing importance of marriage as a source of respectability. This development did not, however, reduce the clear differences among the social groups, with the elite and middle class showing a less egalitarian pattern.