"For Their Own Reasons": Individual Marriage Decisions and Family Life

Abstract

In an attempt to direct attention away from measures of central tenden cy, this essay focuses on the dispersion of marriage ages derived from the family reconstitution study of Shepshed, Leicestershire, 1600-1851. The evidence shows that there was no connection between "inheritance" and the timing of mar riage-in fact, most marriages took place well before paternal death. Birth-parity seems to have had little impact on male age at marriage, while for women there was a difference of something over one year between the age at marriage of eldest daughters and other-parity daughters. It is shown that the family had little in the way of a "demonstration effect" and that there is almost no correlation between intra- and inter-generational ages at marriage within specific families. In sum, it is considered that individuals decided to marry for their own reasons.