NUPTIALITY DURING THE EARLY STAGES OF THE DEMOGRAPHIC-TRANSITION

The timing of fertility decline in a society depends not only on change from a traditional type of household to the urban-industrial type, but also on the economic situation of traditional households, which is determined by the relationship between the two main factors of production land and labour. We shall show that this timing depends on nuptiality during the period prior to the demographic transition. In populations in which women married at an early age and where marriage for them was nearly universal, the first stages of the transition coincided with changes on nuptiality, but fertility did not begin to fall until several decades later. The role of nuptiality in the theory of demographic transition and in population policies needs to be re-assessed.