Western Civilization - History Of European Society

452Chapter 23

marry at twelve and boys at fourteen for most of the
century. Orthodox canon law accepted marriage at
thirteen for girls and fifteen for boys. Literature from
the era reminds readers that early marriages did occur,
such as the nurse in Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin(1832) who
married at thirteen. The history of European marriage
during the nineteenth century, however, is different
from what the law permitted (see table 23.9). Marriage
generally occurred much later—at, or after, age
twenty-five—and the average age at marriage in-
creased, reaching into the thirties in some regions.
Women typically married at a younger age than
men did.
The average age at marriage in Britain in the early
nineteenth century was approximately twenty-five for
women and twenty-six for men. A study of Belgium in
1800 found a range of marital ages for men of roughly
twenty-five to thirty-two, depending upon their occu-
pation; the same data found women marrying at
twenty-four to thirty. The latest averages were in Ire-
land, where marriage was traditionally linked to suffi-
cient landholding to support a family. The potato
famine of the 1840s taught the tragedy of having a fam-
ily but no ability to feed it. One-fourth of the popula-

tion of Ireland during the late nineteenth century never

married, and those who did, married at an age of eco-

nomic security: thirty-eight for men and thirty for

women.

A dramatic contrast to these marital patterns ex-

isted in eastern Europe. A study comparing Sweden and

Serbia in 1900 found huge differences for people in

their twenties. Only 8 percent of Swedish men and 20

percent of Swedish women were married at age twenty

to twenty-four, but the Serbian figures were 50 percent

for men and 84 percent for women. The Serbian pat-

tern also characterized nineteenth-century Russia,

where the average age at marriage in the 1830s was

eighteen for both sexes. Serfs could not postpone mar-

riage until they possessed land of their own unless they

planned never to marry. Even after emancipation, most

Russian peasants in 1868 were married by age twenty.

These marital patterns, like those in Ireland or Würt-

temberg, appear to have been a direct result of the eco-

nomic condition of the population.

The institution of marriage changed during the

nineteenth century. One aspect of this change was the

The figures in this table are the percentage of newlyweds

signing wedding certificates with an “X.”

England France

Date Men Women Men Women

1800 n.a. 5 372 n.a.

1820 n.a. n.a. 46 65

1830 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a.

1840 33 49 n.a. n.a.

1850 31 36 n.a. n.a

1860 26 36 30 45

1870 20 27 27 40

1880 14 19 16 25

1890 7 8 8 14

1900 3 3 5 6

1910 34

Source: Statesman’s Yearbook(London: Macmillan, passim); Hartmut

Kaelble, Industrialization(New York: St. Martin’s, 1986), pp. 90–91.

n.a. Not available.

aItaly did not yet exist as a unified country.

TABLE 23.8

The Decline of Illiteracy in Europe, 1800–1910

Mean Age at Marriage in Belgium, 1800

Occupation Men Women

Artisans 26.8 26.6

Farmers 30.6 27.8

Servants 26. 327. 3

Shopkeepers 26.0 24.1

Spinners 29.9 29.8

Weavers 25.6 23.9

Others 32.1 27.5

Mean Age at Marriage in Württemberg, 1880–1914

Occupation Men Women

Agriculture 32.8 29.4

Metal worker 32.2 27.4

Textile worker 32.8 30.1

Source: Belgian data from Myron P. Gutman, Toward the Modern Econ-

omy: Early Industry in Europe, 1500–1800(New York, N.Y.: Knopf,

1988), p. 169; German data from Heilwig Schomerus, “The Family Life-

Cycle: A Study of Factory Workers in Nineteenth Century Württemberg,”

in Richard J. Evans and W. R. Lee, eds., The German Family: Essays on the

Social History of the Family in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Ger-

many(Totowa, N.J.: Barnes and Noble, 1981), p. 183.

TABLE 23.9

Marriage Patterns in

Nineteenth-Century Europe