Family Formation and Age at Marriage in Saint-Hyacinthe Quebec, 1854-1891

Authors

  • Peter Gossage

Abstract

This article attempts to understand linkages between structural economic change and patterns of family formation in Quebec in the second half of the nineteenth century. Its focus is on marriage age, a demographic variable which, as European studies have shown, is sensitive to economic conditions and opportunities, and an important determinant of family size and structure. Men and women who married for the first time in late nineteenth-century Saint-Hyacinthe married two to three years younger than the provincial average. This pattern echoes that of the early capitalist wage workers studied by the proponents of the proto-industrial model in Europe.

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Published

1991-05-01

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Section

Articles