1 The season of marriage in Augusta County, Va., from 1749 to 1773 was as follows:
|
Marriage Index |
Percent of all |
Month |
(m = 100) |
Marriages |
January |
|
|
February |
|
|
March |
|
|
April |
|
|
May |
|
|
June |
|
|
July |
|
|
August |
|
|
September |
|
|
October |
|
|
November |
|
|
December |
|
|
Total |
|
Source: Computed from data in William A. Crozier, Early Virginia Marriages (Baltimore, 1968), 85-88.
2 In eight English border parishes scattered through the counties of Cumberland and Westmorland, all showed a peak season of marriage in the months of April, May, June and July. See E. A. Wrigley and R. S. Schofield, The Population History of England, 1541-1871 (Cambridge, 1981), 302; and Ann Kussmaul, “Time and Space, Hoofs and Grain: The Seasonality of Marriage in England,” JIH 15 (1985), 755-79.
This North British pattern differed from that of East Anglia, which showed a strong autumn peak, and the Midlands, which tended to be mixed or bimodal. Marriages in Roman Catholic countries of western Europe, including France, Italy and Belgium, generally showed a January-February peak similar to that in Anglican Virginia. The Cambridge Group offer a materialist explanation for these variations, in terms of systems of production and agricultural regimes (arable, wood pasture), but their own evidence does not support them.