Abstract
Courtship, the Clandestine Marriage Act, and Illegitimate Fertility in England Illegitimate fertility in England more than doubled between 175o and 800oo. This study examines the extent to which Laslett's hypothesis and Lord Hardwicke's Clandestine Marriage Act of 1753 account for the rise. Using Wilson and Woods' estimates of illegitimate fertility and nuptiality indices, a model was fit to the trends in illegitimate fertility from i58i to I8o0 through multiple regression techniques.1 Laslett noted the existence in England of an inverse relationship between illegitimacy and prenuptial pregnancy on the one hand, and marriage age and proportions never marrying on the other. He explained this inverse relationship by suggesting that the process of courtship and marriage took a long time, during which couples might copulate well before the ceremony. When circumstances were more propitious for marriage, more couples would be engaged in courtship activity. The more courtships that occurred, the more opportunities there were for disappointments in courtship, and hence a rise in the number of illegitimate births.2
Published Version
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