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In many parts of Western Europe the age at first marriage and the level of celibacy declined in the second half of the 19th century. This weakening of the European marriage pattern (EMP) can be interpreted as a "classic" response to the increase of the standard of living, but a more far-reaching interpretation is that the erosion of the EMP was part of a cultural shift characterized by the rise of a new, less instrumental and more egalitarian view on marriage and partner selection. The latter vision implies the increase of the preference for a same age marriage. We test this explanation by using a combined Belgian-Dutch data set of marriage certificates (N = 766,412). Our findings corroborate the "cultural shift thesis."
Key Words: love, marriage, social trends/social change, union formation.
From the 16th century onward marriage played a key role in the long-term population development of Europe. In contrast to the situation in other parts of the world, the European marriage pattern (EMP) was characterized by late marriage and a high proportion of persons never marrying. Various authors have also pointed to the relatively small age difference between spouses as another distinguishing feature of the EMP (Hajnal, 1969). The system helped to keep population in line with the economic resources. The key to this unique marriage pattern was the norm that it was necessary for a man to defer marriage until he could establish an independent livelihood adequate to support a family.
In many parts of Western Europe the age at marriage and the level of celibacy declined in the second half of the 19th century. The erosion of these characteristics of the EMP has been interpreted as a "classic" response of relaxation of strict marital norms induced by the increase of the standard of living, industrialization, and urbanization, processes that made old marriage patterns less useful. A more far-reaching interpretation, however, is that the erosion of the EMP was also the consequence of a cultural shift characterized by the rise of a new, less instrumental and more egalitarian view on marriage and partner selection (Coontz, 2005).
In theories about the development of the EMP, not much attention has been paid to age differences between spouses. Empirical studies on the evolution of age...