Marriage payments: a fundamental reconsideration Abstract This paper is a constructive critique of the well-known book by Jack Goody andThis paper is a constructive critique of the well-known book by Jack Goody and Stanley Tambiah (1973), Bridewealth and Dowry. Given the general acceptance of Goody’s framework in contemporary studies of marriage and marriage payments, it is essential that we re...

It is well known that the shape of the distribution of age at first marriage shows strong regularities across many countries and recent historical periods. We account for these patterns by developing agent-based models that simulate the aggregate behavior of individuals searching for marriage partners. Past models assumed fully rational agents with complete knowledge of the marriage market; our...

(?) ' Bigamous marriage ' means the marriage of a person during the lifetime of his or her spouse, if the marriage of such person with such spouse has not been dissolved or declared void by a Court of competent jurisdiction, or is not void according to the custom or usage of the community or section to which either of the parties to such marriage belongs; (6) ' Hindu' includes a Sikh, Jain, Bud...

This paper considers marriage, divorce and reciprocity-based cooperation by couples in the form of sharing of earnings-risk. While risk sharing is one bene...t to marriage it is also limited by divorce risk. With search in the marriage market there may be multiple equilibria di¤ering not only in family formation and dissolution patterns but also in the role of marriage in providing informal ins...

Although previous research demonstrates the importance of the availability of marriageable men, earnings, and employment stability for racial differences in marriage, it also suggests that other factors likely contribute to this variation. This study investigates a new factor that might help to explain racial variation in marriage, the kinship group. To explore this possible connection, we exam...

Explanations for the positive association between education and marriage in the United States emphasize the economic and cultural attractiveness of having a college degree in the marriage market. However, educational attainment may also shape the opportunities that men and women have to meet other college-educated partners, particularly in contexts with significant educational stratification. W...

In order to credibly "sell" legitimate children to their spouse, women must forego more attractive mating opportunities. This paper derives the implications of this observation for the pattern of matching in marriage markets, the dynamics of human capital accumulation, and the evolution of the gene pool. A key consequence of the trade-off faced by women is that marriage markets will naturally t...

OBJECTIVE Estimate predictive associations of mental disorders with marriage and divorce in a cross-national sample. METHOD Population surveys of mental disorders included assessment of age at first marriage in 19 countries (n = 46,128) and age at first divorce in a subset of 12 countries (n = 30,729). Associations between mental disorders and subsequent marriage and divorce were estimated in...

Using a dataset of 1,700 ages at first marriage for Roman Catholics born in the Groningen Ommelanden (The Netherlands) during the period 1721-1800 explanatory variables for the specific age at marriage have been searched for. The 18 th and early 19 th century Groningen Ommelanden fitted perfectly into Hajnal’s Western European marriage pattern with very high ages at marriage and a high celibacy...

Marriage matching functions are used to study how marital patterns change when population supplies change. A behavioral marriage matching function with spillover effects is used to rationalize marriage and cohabitation behavior in contemporary Canada. The model non-parametrically identifies the systematic gains to marriage and cohabitation for a couple relative to remaining single. These gains ...