The Resilience of English Marriage Practices under Conditions of a Disordered Marriage Market: Tasmania, 1838-99.

Peter Gunn, Independent Scholar

This paper analyses patterns of marriage and remarriage among settlers from Great Britain and Ireland in the colony of Tasmania in the nineteenth century. It rehearses theoretically the possible responses to the conditions of disorder that prevailed and assesses the relative importance of each by reference to changes over sixty years in patterns of nuptiality. It explores the degree to which the English patterns of the nineteenth century were replicated in the colony under conditions of a severely disordered marriage market characterised by a ‘squeeze’ on women. It addresses changes to the ages at marriage of males and females, the age differences at marriage and remarriage, the opportunities for marriage mobility occasioned by the ‘squeeze’, the proportions remaining unmarried, and the duration of widowhood for those remarrying, as the sex ratio normalised. It concludes with a commentary on the relative resilience on the diverse elements that made up nineteenth-century English marriage norms.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 110. Marriage and Divorce: The Role of Social Context and Legal Frameworks