Social class and marriage patterns in some Oxfordshire populations

Abstract

A study has been made from parish records of the patterns of marital movement from 1837 to the present day in the Otmoor region of Oxfordshire. The social classes of brides and grooms have been taken into account.It is shown that the spatial mobility of the different classes is markedly different, and in the earlier part of the period this difference is evident even on a very local scale. Social class distributions themselves vary according to population size and this variation affects the nature of marital exchange between the different populations in the area. Spatially exogamous as compared with endogamous grooms, however, do not appear to differ in their preferences for the social class of brides. There is marked assortative marriage for social class in Classes II and IV but both brides and grooms of Class III, especially in the present century, choose their partners more or less randomly with respect to social class.