Marriage a Seasonal Custom: Contribution to a Sociological Study of Marriage in France

Among the rules followed by future spouses with regard to their marriage, there is a whole group that can be studied by means of demographic statistics, namely those which determine the time of year chosen for the wedding.

After describing French customs in the matter, the author examines how they have evolved since the early nineteenth century. Certain practices, such as those linked to the Catholic rules on marriage, are tending to disappear, while others are becoming rapidly more widespread; the absence of weddings in May and September, for example, is a phenomenon dating from the last century. The emergence of such customs in the nineteenth century reveals a little-known aspect of French folklore.

In a recent article on the relations between sociology and demography, J. Stoetzel revealed, in these very pages,⁽¹⁾ the artificial nature of the boundaries customarily drawn between these two intellectual disciplines, and easily convinced us of the need for these two sciences to provide each other with mutual support. Indeed, while demographic phenomena depend to a certain extent upon biological factors, they also possess a human character which means that acceptation of the rules they follow entails membership of a social group. Hence, a purely biological, genetic or physiological “explanation” of population phenomena is not sufficient; they must also be “understood” and their social meaning identified.

And there is perhaps no phenomenon more charged with meaning than marriage, and it would not be difficult for a sociologist or historian to find, in the rites surrounding the current celebration of marriage in France, numerous vestiges of ancient customs passed down from the Celts, Romans or others. While it is true that events surrounding birth and death often give rise to similar observations, in marriage there is a circumstance that is not found elsewhere: while our date of birth or death is dictated, in part at least, by nature, we are free to choose our wedding day. This article examines the rules governing this choice in France. We shall see that some of them have an evident religious origin, while others, on the contrary, have no obvious explanation.

We will not seek to give an opinion here, but will leave it up to sociologists and historians to answer the questions that we raise.

Figure 1.

Proportion of marriages registered each month for 12,000 annual marriages (1927–1938)

The information at our disposal consists of monthly marriage statistics published each year by the French statistical office for the entire country and for each département. A quick glance at these statistics immediately reveals that numbers of marriages vary substantially from one month to the next and that the months when weddings are most frequent, for example, are the same each year. Clearly, marriages are seasonal, and the task we have set ourselves is to identify this seasonal pattern. We shall apply a standard method; it involves calculating each year, over a period of 10 years for example, the monthly distribution of a fixed annual number of marriages, generally 12,000. For a given month, the numbers obtained generally vary little from one year to the next, and their average is taken to be characteristic of the month and period studied.

The set of 12 monthly averages calculated in this way represents the seasonal pattern we are seeking.⁽²⁾ Graph 1 illustrates the process applied to the whole of France over the period 1927–1938. If we exclude the months of February, March and April, the results obtained are satisfactory and Graph 2 reveals the seasonal pattern of marriages from May to December and January. Over this nine-month period, May and January are the least popular months for marriage, and October the most popular. However, for the months of February, March and April, the curves of Graph 1 show much larger fluctuations than the curves of the other months, and a reason for these differences must be found.

Figure 2.

Seasonal pattern of monthly change in numbers of marriages from May...