Changes in Choice of Spouse as an Indicator of a Society in a State of Transition: Woerden, 1830-1930

The 19th and 20th centuries have been an era characterised by social modernisation spurred on primarily by economic developments. This process of modernisation also had an impact on interpersonal relationships and resulted in a more open society. The degree of homogamy between husbands and wives is...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Historical social research (Köln) 1998-01, Vol.23 (1/2 (84)), p.231-253
Main Authors: Beekink, Erik, Liefbroer, Aart C., van Poppel, Frans
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Age
Age at marriage
Age groups
Bourgeois
Civil service
Class
Economic development
Fathers
Historical demography
Homogamy
Marriage
Marriage Patterns
Mate Selection
Modeling
Netherlands
Nineteenth Century
Religion
Religious Attitudes
Religious segregation
Social Change
Social Class
Social classes
Social Closure
Social history
Social Indicators
Social Integration
Spouses
Twentieth Century
Upper class
Workforce
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Summary:The 19th and 20th centuries have been an era characterised by social modernisation spurred on primarily by economic developments. This process of modernisation also had an impact on interpersonal relationships and resulted in a more open society. The degree of homogamy between husbands and wives is an important indicator for societal openness, the theory being that the changes which occurred during this period enabled people to be freer and less pragmatic when choosing a spouse. This paper examines this thesis by studying changes in social class, age- and religious homogamy based on marriage data for the town of Woerden during the period 1830-1930. In contrast to other studies which examined the degree of homogamy of each of these variables in isolation, our aim was to reveal the interrelationship between the factors which influenced a person's choice of spouse, using log-linear analyses. The results show that a unidimensional model positing a trend towards increasing openness can be misleading. A decline in social class homogamy and an increase in age homogamy — indicators which would suggest that people had more freedom when it came to choosing a spouse — were found to go hand in hand with an increase in religious homogamy — indicative of a society in the ever-tightening grip of religion.
ISSN:0172-6404