8 Nuptiality: Concepts and measures

Shalini Singh and Gautam Kshatriya

epgp books

 

 

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

  • The chapter focuses on the key concepts of marriage and Cohabiation
  • It states the benefits, legality and types of marriage
  • It makes us understand about the various measures involved in nuptiality process.

    TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

1)      Introduction to Nuptiality

2)      Marriage and Cohabitation

3)      Benefits of Marriage

4)      Types of Marriage

5)      Legal Aspects of Marriage

6)      Sources of Marriage Data

6.1)Vital Registration System

6.2)       Life Neighbourhood History Calender

6.3)       Ethnographhic Method

7)      General Measures of Nuptiality Process

7.1)Crude Marriage Rate

7.2) General Marriage Rate

7.3) Age Specific Marriage Rate

7.4) Order Specific Marriage Rate

7.5) First order specific Marriage Rate

7.6) Total Marriage Rate

7.7) Total First Marriage Rate

7.8) Singulate Mean Age at Marriage

7.9) Gross Nuptiality Table

8)  Standardisation of Nuptiality Measures

 

Introduction

 

Demography can be defined as The study of populations, with special reference to size and density, fertility, mortality, growth, age distribution, migration, and vital statistics with the integration of all these with social and economic conditions.

 

The family is one of the fundamental social institutions in all societies, although its definition varies from place to place and time to time. Marriage is termed as the legal contract between two individuals to form a sexual, productive and reproductive union. This union is well examined by family, society, religious institutions and legal system. It defines the relationship of the two individuals to each other., to any children they might have, to their extended families . The key feautures of marriage include a legal binding, long term contract, sexual exclusivity , shared residence, co residence and joint production. Spouses acquire rights and responsibilities with marriage.

 

Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a socially or ritually recognized union between spouses that establishes rights and obligations between them, between them and their children, and between them and their in-laws. The definition of marriage varies according to different cultures, but it is principally an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually sexual, are acknowledged. In some cultures, marriage is recommended or considered to be compulsory before pursuing any sexual activity. When defined broadly, marriage is considered a cultural universal.

 

Individuals may marry for several reasons, including legal, social, libidinal, emotional, financial, spiritual, and religious purposes. Whom they marry may be influenced by socially determined rules of incest, prescriptive marriage rules, parental choice and individual desire. In some areas of the world, arranged marriage, child marriage, polygamy, and sometimes forced marriage, may be practiced as a cultural tradition. Conversely, such practices may be outlawed and penalized in parts of the world out of concerns for women’s rights and because of international law. In developed parts of the world, there has been a general trend towards ensuring equal rights within marriage for women and legally recognizing the marriages of interfaith or interracial, and same-sex couples. These trends coincide with the broader human rights movement.

 

Marriage can be recognized by a state, an organization, a religious authority, a tribal group, a local community, or peers. It is often viewed as a contract. Civil marriage, which does not exist in some countries, is marriage without religious content carried out by a government institution in accordance with the marriage laws of the jurisdiction, and recognised as creating the rights and obligations intrinsic to matrimony. Marriages can be performed in a secular civil ceremony or in a religious setting via a wedding ceremony. The act of marriage usually creates normative or legal obligations between the individuals involved, and any offspring they may produce. In terms of legal recognition, most sovereign states and other jurisdictions limit marriage to opposite-sex couples and a diminishing number of these permit polygyny, child marriages, and forced marriages. Over the twentieth century, a growing number of countries and other jurisdictions have lifted bans on and have established legal recognition for interracial marriage, interfaith marriage, and most recently, gender-neutral marriage. Some cultures allow the dissolution of marriage through divorce or annulment. In some areas, child marriages and polygamy may occur in spite of national laws against the practice.

 

Marriage and Cohabiatation

 

Many contemporary couple start to live together in the same residence without marrying. In some societies and countries this practice is socially recognised form of partnership due to its stable and permanent affirmative nature. Cohabitation refers to be more of a stage in the courtship process. Among unmarried heterosexual cohabiatation has become very common as majority of marriages are preceeded by this practice. The similarity between marriage and cohabitation is quite apparent as they both are like romantic coresidential unions but it also differs in many ways as it requires no formal , socially recognised, legally enforeceable commitment for the long term. Cohabiting couples are moreover like married couples to commingle their financial resourses, they are less likely to share the leisure time and a social life and are less likely to have children and are also less likely to remain together forever.

 

Cohabitation is said to be less institutionalised than marriage, specially in countries like United States and other countries. The various requirements for establishing or ending a cohabiting union are minimal with no legal or religious communities to abide them. An uncertainity about the nature of the relationship exists and its future seems to lead to a lower level of commitment leading to a lower level of relationship happiness and lower level of emotional well being especially for cohabiting women with children.

 

A dramatic rise in cohabitation can be seen in many socities as it focuses on a long term social change, including rising individualism and secularism. An increase in terms of economy, especially women’s increased labor force participation and liberalization of attitudes towards gender roles have also contributed to the cohabitation patterns. Accounting to these changes, there is also a change in the attitudes and value away from responsibility to others and towards individual goal attainment which away from patriarchal authority and is towards egalitarianism.

 

Cohabitation can also act as an alternative to be single or to get married. It tends to play different roles in an individuals life. It depends on economic and social circumstances, age of the cohabitations or the previous marital status. In US unmarried women cohabiting together avail the maximum amount of contraceptive usage. It is important to know that findings refer to women in specific cohort and it has to be applied in various cultural context.

 

Benefits of marriage

 

As a result of the features, marriage changes the behaviour of spouses and therby their well being. It is said that married people have better mental and physical health than single people. The social support provided by a spouse, combined with the economic resources produced by the marriage, facilitates both the production and maintenance of health. A key function of marriage is the bearing and raising of children. The institution of marriage directs the resources of the spouses and their extended families towards the couples children , increasing child well being.

 

Marriage Types

 

Marriage demographers in developing countries are also interested in consensual unions referring to cohabiting unions, living together relationships, de facto marriages and also de facto relationships. These unions incorporate cohabitation of heterosexual partners and they tend to vary greatly in the degree of mutual commitment of the cohabiting parties. In some adverse situations one or both the parties is unable to marry because of inability to dissolve the previous marriage. Consensual marriages are not conferred to the precursors of marriage, but it can be taken as an alternative to marriage which is devoid of least marital character of abiding with law.

 

Many developing countries have also recognised the living apart together relationships were, couples are in intimate relationships but are not co- residential. The reasons for this kind of cohabitation can be many. Stating one among them is the pragmatic approach, where the decision to live apart might be due to different working locations, or couples can’t afford to live together. In some cases, the values of autonomy is recognised were both the couples can not jeopardise their way of thinking but can enjoy the level of intimacy within.

 

Conjugal unions is referred to the combination of formal marriages indicating to all stable co-residential sexual unions. Strictly, demographers believe in conducting analysis of all conjugal unions.

 

Legal Aspects of Marriage

 

Marriage differs from the other less formal, relationships, primarily in legal status as it is a legally binded contract. The treatment of marriage in the law shapes the institution. Permanance, joint production, coresidence, social recognition of sexual and child bearing union are among the most important characteristics of the institution of marriage. Because the couple legally bind with each other to live and work together for their joint well being of each other. The institution of marriage frosters and builds trust.

 

Marriage laws

 

The laws surrounding marriage in many countries contradict the various international standards of human rights, institutionalise violence against women, child marriage and forced marriage. Women after marriage requires the permission of a husband for his wife to work in a paid job, sign various legal documents, file criminal charges against someone or sue in civil court etc. These things were legal in many Western countries like France, where the married women obtained the right to work without their husband’s permission in the year 196. A married woman needed her husband’s consent, referred to as the permiso marital, for almost all economic activities, including employment, ownership of property, and even traveling away from home. The state of permiso marital was abolished in 1975.

 

An absolute submission of a wife to her husband is accepted as natural in many parts of the world, for instance surveys by UNICEF have shown that the percentage of women aged 15–49 who think that a husband is justified in hitting or beating his wife under certain circumstances is as high as 90% in Afghanistan and Jordan, 87% in Mali, 86% in Guinea and Timor-Leste, 81% in Laos, 80% in Central African Republic.[181] Detailed results from Afghanistan show that 78.4% of women agree with a beating if the wife “goes out without telling him [the husband]” and 76.2% agree “if she argues with him”.[182]

 

Throughout history, and still today in many countries, laws have provided for mitigating circumstances, partial or complete defenses, for men who killed their wives due to adultery, with such acts often being seen as crimes of passion and being covered by legal defenses such as provocation or defense of family honor. [183]

 

Right and ability to divorce

 

The various international law and conventions recognizes the need for consent for entering a marriage– as one cannot be forced to get married against their will ; therefore holding a person in a marriage against their will. It is not considered as a violation of human rights if a person has properly consented before entering into such unions. The ability to divorce continues to be a controversial issue in many countries. The public discourse involves different ideologies such as feminism, social conservatism, religious interpretations.

 

Sources of Marriage Data.

 

Vital Registration System

 

In many countries the marriage of couples are recognised by several religious and civil marriage ceremonies. These are required to be registered with a governmental agencies and are regularly updated and released in the form of registration data. These data are yielded by administrative proceedings and are further used for analysis of trends and patterns of marriage. These data are concerned marriage events and adopt a particular, legalistic definition of marriage. Census data focus on the status of individuals as married or not married at the time of the census count and rely on the respondents perception of which category they fit into.

 

Sample surveys is considered among the third source of marriage. If utilising a similar question focussed on the current status, these may define marriage as census does. The survey methods are frequently used by Scholars, policy makers and governmental statistical agencies.

 

Data on key family events, including birth, marriage, divorce has been collected through the registration of these events with religious institutions or governmental agencies. A difference lies between states in the information collected and making these data less than ideal for studying marriage.

 

Life Neighbhourhood History Calender- The life history calendar was developed in order to assist the various retrospective accounts of life experiences. It uses a combination of chart that combines he record of a number of event histories sample, migration, labor force participation, education, marriage, cohabitation. A single format places calendar year in the columns of the chart and also events in the rows. The cells might contain information on a specific transition, with horizontal line indicating an ongoing state, such as an intact marriage. The respondents memory can be improved by using the life history calendar method. A respondents might use memorable events such as marriage or school education to recall the various timmings of the change or occurance and transition of events. The use of calendar seems to improve the interviewers, ability to collect collect accurate and complete data across various domains diminishing the gap. The Neighborhood History calendar is a further extention to Life History which allows the researcher to collect contextual event history data in the local environment. This method allows the direct collection of measures of the local context and changes in it permits the researcher to distinguish between contexts that have similar characteristics.

 

Ethnographic Methods

 

Survey research, vital statistics and historical data configures the general picture of families and their members. These sources of the data do not uncover much details about daily lives in families, decision making and various interactions between its members. The complexities of family members living and cohabiting together can be studied by ethnographic method, where the sole role of researcher is to stay together with the respondents. Ethnographic method allows the researchers to place families in the cultural, social, economic and community context to uncover and incorporate unusual family characteristics. It listens to the voices of the respondents and to also tell their own stories. The volume of information collected from each family restricts the researcher to a relatively small sample and doesn’t supports the generalisation of ideas. The strengths of ethnographic data includes the richness of information and its vividness of the picture of family life.

 

General measures of the Nuptiality Processes

 

The most basic measure of the intensity of the process of marriage is Crude Marriage Rate and is previously defined as follows

 

1)      Crude marriage Rates

 

CMR= (M/P) x 1000

 

Where, M= Marriage during the year y

              P= Mid year population in the year y.

 

Like other Crude rates CMR is listed to have major deficiencies and has to be maintained more cautiously in refining its calculation. Denominator includes individuals who cannot possibly contribute to its numerator- they are too young or assuming the marriage system is monogamous and is already married.

 

2)      General marriage Rate–

 

It is an initial refinement were the denominator is a measure of the true population at risk, or the marriageable population. A meaure excludes persons under the legal minimum age for marriage and those older persons who already are married. It is usually suggested that GMR should be calculated separately for both males and females.

 

GMR is initially equated by

 

GMR= (M/Pm) X 1000

    Where,

M= Marriage during year y

 

Pm= the mean marriageable population of given sex

 

General Marriage Rate for Men and Women– specific marriage rates can be calculated for both males and females

 

General Marriage rate for Females

 

GMRf =       M           *1000

Pf15+

 

General Marriage Rate for Men (GMRm)

 

GMRm =     M           *1000

Pm15+

 

Note: GMRf ≠ GMRm

 

3)      Age Specific Marriage Rates

 

Using the life table type notation, we can commonly use age specific marriage rates.

 

nSASMRx= (nMx/nPx)1000

 

where x= the lower limit of the age group for which marriage rate is being calculated.

 

n= the width of that age group in years

 

nMx= the number of marriages of males or females aged between x and x+n years during  year y

 

nPx= the mean male or female population aged between x and x+n years in year y.

 

these rates includes already married persons who are not at a risk of marrying during the end of the year y.

 

ASMR—Number of marriages per 1,000 women (or men) of age “a” Š

 

          Ma  *1000

Wa

 

Where Ma = Number of marriages to women of age “a”

 

Wa = Mid-year population of women of age “a”

 

4)      Order-Specific Marriage Rate (OSMR)

 

OSMR—Number of order “i” marriages per 1,000 persons age 15 and older with marriage order “i-1” Š

 

               Mi          *1000

P115 i-1

     Where Mi = Number of marria ges of order “i”

 

P115 i-1 = Mid-year population age 15+ with marriage order “i-1”

 

Order-Specific Marriage Rate (OSMR) Š

  • OSMR is normally sex-specific .
  • It can also be age-specific

OSMR for Women

 

              Mi     *1000

W15+ i-1

 

OSMR for Men

 

          M        *1000

 P15+ m,i-1

 

 5)      First Order-Specific Marriage Rate

 

First order-specific marriage rate is used for a nuptiality life table

          M1    *1000

P15+ s

     Where M1  = Number of first marriages

 

P15+ s = Mid-year population of never-married (single) persons Š

Note: Is usually calculated sex-specific 1000 P M s 15 1 ∗ + 19

 

6)      Age-Order Specific Marriage Rate (AOSMR)

 

Let Mia  = Number of marriages of order “i” to women (or men) of age “a”

 

Pi-1a = Mid-year population of women (or men) of age “a” who are at marriage order “i-1”

 

7)      Total Marriage Rate (TMR) Total Marriage Rate—Total number of marriages a person will have at the end of his/her marriageable age if he/she follows the given schedule of marriage

 

8)      Total First Marriage Rate (TMFR)

TFMR ≤ 1.0 for cohort rate, but period rate can be above 1.0

 

TMRm >TMRf

 

Note: TMR – TFMR = TRMR (Total remarriage rate)

 

Sources of Marriage data

 

9)      Singulate Mean Age at Marriage (SMAM)

 

Estimate of the mean age at first marriage approximated by indirect method from cross-sectional data on marital status by Mean age at marriage of women marrying before they reach 50 Basic assumptions:

 

The change in the proportion single from age “x” to age “x+1” is a measure of the proportion of a birth cohort who married at that age if no woman dies between her 15th and 55th birthday

 

The risk of marriage has remained constant (otherwise we estimate the mean for some average cohort)

  • Let Si, Sj= Proportions of women single at ages i, j, then

 

Other Measures

  • Mean and median ages (of first marriage, of remarriages)
  • Percent single
  • Age of groom by age of bride
  • Duration of marriage

    Standardization

 

Most of the marriage measures can and should be standardized for comparisons

  • Can be done by direct or indirect method
  • Used for comparative marriage analyses

    10)  Gross Nuptiality Table

  • Assumes no person dies before passing through the marriageable ages
  • Same techniques as in life table construction
  • Allows one to determine what proportion of a cohort of single persons would be married at various ages assuming that the marriage rates used continues to prevail and there is no mortality
  • Takes into account mortality as well as marriage
  • Indicates the pace at which a group of single persons is decreased annually by marriage and death.

    Summary

  • The family is one of the fundamental social institutions in all societies, although its definition varies from place to place and time to time. Marriage is termed as the legal contract between two individuals to form a sexual, productive and reproductive union.
  • Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a socially or ritually recognized union between spouses that establishes rights and obligations between them, between them and their children, and between them and their in-laws.
  • Individuals may marry for several reasons, including legal, social, libidinal, emotional, financial, spiritual, and religious purposes. Whom they marry may be influenced by socially determined rules of incest, prescriptive marriage rules, parental choice and individual desire.
  • Cohabitation is said to be less institutionalised than marriage, specially in countries like United States and other countries. The various requirements for establishing or ending a cohabiting union are minimal with no legal or religious communities to abide them.
  • In many countries the marriage of couples are recognised by several religious and civil marriage ceremonies. Sample surveys is considered among the third source of marriage. If utilising a similar question focussed on the current status, these may define marriage as census does.
  • The most of the marriage measures taken into consideration are Crude Marriage Rate, General Marriage Rate, Total Marriage Rate, Age Specific Marriage Rate, order Age specific marriage rate and Singulate Mean Age at marriage.
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    Suggested Readings

  1. Bongaarts, J. (1978). A framework for analyzing the proximate determinants of fertility. Population and development review, 105-132.
  2. Bongaarts, J., & Potter, R. E. (2013). Fertility, biology, and behavior: An analysis of the proximate determinants. Academic Press.
  3. Bulatao, R. A. (Ed.). (1983). Determinants of fertility in developing countries: a summary of knowledge. National Academy.
  4. Carmichael, G. A. (2016). Fundamentals of demographic analysis: Concepts, measures and methods. Springer.
  5. Hinde A (1998). Demographic Methods. London: Arnold Publishers.
  6. Kleinman, D. S. (1980). Human adaptation and population growth: a non-Malthusian perspective. Rowman & Littlefield.
  7. National Academy of Sciences (US). Office of the Foreign Secretary. (1971). Rapid population growth: consequences and policy implications (Vol. 1). National Academy of Sciences.
  8. Nisbet, R. M., & Gurney, W. (2003). Modelling fluctuating populations: reprint of first Edition (1982). Blackburn Press.
  9. Preston SH, Heuveline P and Guillot M (2001). Measuring and Modelling Population Processes. Oxford: Blakwell.
  10. Renshaw, E. (1993). Modelling biological populations in space and time (Vol. 11). Cambridge University Press.