The geography of marriage in Britain, 1920-1960.

In 1959 the Population Investigation Committee at the London School of Economics instituted a nationwide survey of attitudes of marriage, contraception and family size. Questions were also asked about the birthplace of the partners and where they were living when they first met each other. These four place names provide the basis for marital mobility data whose geographical distribution is described here. A simple model of marital mobility is presented and the data are analysed according to (1) the propensity to marry outside the individual's birthplace or home town and (2) the distribution of the distan(e separating the partners when they come from different places. The data are very heterogeneous, so they are broken down for further analysis according to the population sizes of the birthplaces and home towns of each partner. The propensity to marry within the same place is strongly and positively associated with its population size. If the partners come from different places when the distance between their birthplaces, or between their home towns when they met, is associated with the population size of these places. Similar associations were found between the probability of migration from the birthplace, the distance moved, and population size. Men are more likely to move from their birthplaces than are women, and if they move they are more likely to move further. Marriage distance, as defined here, is also strongly influenced by population size. The geographical theory of central places offers a suitable framework for understanding the relation of marital mobility and population size and the results of this study are discussed in the context of geographical theories.