Age at Marriage: Inter and Intra Cohort Variation

Changes in marriage patterns in the United Kingdom over time are reviewed. Each successive cohort of women born between 1920 and 1940 married sooner than the preceding cohort. This trend culminated with the cohorts born in the 1940s all of whom had remarkably similar age at marriage patterns which were the youngest ever recorded since civil registration began. In analysis of the 1946 cohort three factors were found to affect age at marriage directly: educational status occupation at marriage and mothers age at marriage. Subsequently there has been a dramatic reversal in marriage behaviour; young people are marrying less and marrying at later ages. The issue of whether this is due to a change in timing or rejection of marriage is addressed the contribution of cohabitation to this change is assessed and structural and ideological changes are discussed. (EXCERPT)