Hajnal line

[foliumnondefluet]

The Hajnal line is a border that links Saint Petersburg, Russia and Trieste, Italy. In 1965, John Hajnal discovered it divides Europe into two areas characterized by a different levels of nuptiality. To the west of the line, marriage rates and thus fertility were comparatively low and a significant minority of women married late or remained single; to the east of the line and in the Mediterranean and select pockets of Northwestern Europe, early marriage was the norm and high fertility was countered by high mortality.

What surprised me was that this difference was supposedly noticeable since the 16th century. I somehow didn't think it would have been that long since we "suddenly" decided to marry for love. It was not entirely clear to me if the marriage age difference didn't exist earlier, or if they just failed to establish whether it did or didn't. The second wouldn't surprise me; it's not like "the media" back then didn't adore love stories long before the 16th century...

Comments

[luinied]

I'm hardly a European history expert, but weren't we starting to see the divide between the commerce-fueled empires of Western Europe and the relatively less successful Eastern Europe by the 16th century? I suspect this has a lot less to do with love than with how wealth and status in Western (hey, that adjective is in its original context for once!) societies correlate with lower birth rates and later marriage, and with how poverty and lack of social mobility seem to correlate generally with earlier, higher birth rates.

[foliumnondefluet]

That it was caused by "the media" was supposed to be a joke =P

There was indeed a great influx of wealth in the 16th century, in no small part through gold looted from the Americas and Indies...