Ashkenazic Jewry and the European marriage pattern: A Preliminary survey of Jewish marriage age

Abstract

In the course of early modern times, the population of Western Europe developed a family and marriage pattern which differed sharply from that of most of the rest of the world. This "European marriage pattern" was marked by very late marriage, by the extreme rarity of households containing more than one couple and by the frequent presence of young unmarried servants.1 This seemingly unique pattern has significance not only because of its impact on the nature of family life, but also because of its possible connection with the emergence of other patterns of modern western life. Late marriage seems to have been connected with systems of widespread free land tenure and private property. By delaying marriage, young people were waiting to accumulate sufficient property before founding a family. (Often they served as servants in the homes of unrelated families during the period before their marriage.) This period of "delayed gratification" was a primitive form of population control and a sign of rational control over one's economic situation. By establishing a long period between physical maturation and marriage, it helped create the separate state of adolescence with its many sexual and emotional strains. It also played a role in the transition from marriage choices controlled by parents for their minor children to marriage partners chosen by the spouses themselves, many of whom were now adults whose parents had either died or retired.