Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.32728/h2025.01
The Ages of Newlyweds in the Parish of Roč, 1651–1800
Zdenko Balog
Abstract
This article analyses the age of newlyweds in the parish of Roč between 1651 and
1800 as a sociological phenomenon. During this period, more than a thousand marriages
were contracted in the parish. It was found that men entered their first marriage
at an average age of 27.78 years, while women did so at 24.64 years. A breakdown
by age groups revealed a preferred age of entry into marriage similar to that found in
neighbouring communities of Venetian Istria, and that the high average was the result
of a significant number of brides and grooms aged over 30, and even over 35, in both
sexes. Thus, more than 28% of men and over 11% of women entered their first marriage
at the age of 30 or later. Various factors were examined, including illegitimate children
and premarital sexual relations, widowed remarriages, exogamy, and marriages
between relatives contracted with dispensation. Although all of these factors show a
certain correlation with the age of newlyweds, the correlation is too weak to explain
why the age at marriage in Roč was higher than, for example, in Pula or Poreč. Moreover,
this correlation is reciprocal, meaning that the frequency of illegitimate children and
premarital conceptions was more a consequence of delayed marriage than its cause.
The true reason for the emergence of the group of newlyweds aged 30 and
over, i.e. delayed marriage, lies in family structure, specifically in the cycle of the socalled
“stem family”. This refers to a nuclear family (parents + unmarried children) in
which children marry outside the parental household, while one or two unmarried
“heirs” remain at home. Only on their parentsʼ deathbed, or after their death, could
these heirs marry and assume control of the household. However, only one of them
was allowed to do so. A recurring pattern can be observed of children marrying while
the father lay on his deathbed. If the parents died earlier, the “heirs” could marry
freely in their late twenties; however, if one of the parents lived to an advanced old
age, it sometimes happened not only that one of the “heirs” unnaturally postponed
marriage, but that they never managed to marry at all.
Keywords
Istria; Roč; Early Modern period; stem family; age of newlyweds
Hrčak ID:
349938
URI
Publication date:
29.7.2026.
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