Social class and marital distance in Oxford City

Abstract

A study has been made of social class distributions and their effects on marital movement in the city of Oxford from 1837 to the present day. The data have been obtained from the marriage registers of nine ecclesiastical parishes which transect the city. There is marked social class heterogeneity according to district, but when the data are combined some striking relationships between occupation and the distributions of marital distance emerge. In general distance decreases and amounts of city endogamy increase almost linearly as one moves from Class I to Class V. There appears to be, however, no very great increase in marital distance in this century as compared with the situation in the last two-thirds of the nineteenth century. Some of the differences between the social classes are due to differences in marital age, but even after this has been taken into account there remains a very statistically significant relationship between class and marital movement.

Migration and Genetic Population Structure with Special Reference to Humans

“…Marital movement among classes is often large (72,74). however, obliterating any heterogeneity and encouraging the use of the population average migration as an estimator.…”

“…In many cases, there are differences in the amount of migration across economic or social classes (1- 3,19,37,39,54,61,74,104,113). Marital movement among classes is often large (72,74).…”

RETROSPECTIVE The growth and development of the Annals of Human Biology : a 25-year retrospective

“…Already in Volume 1 there are two papers from Weiner's old seat in the Department of Human Anatomy at Oxford, one on social class and marital distance in Oxford City, the other on social mobility, assortative marriage, and marital distance (Harrison, Ku È chemann, Hiorns andCarrivick 1974a, Ku È chemann, Harrison, Hiorns andCarrivick 1974). In a similar vein, there are three papers from University College London on the geography of marriage, marriage and mobility, and the e ect of socio-economic class, using the Population Investigation Committee nation-wide survey (Coleman 1977a(Coleman , b, 1981.…”

A Life of Research in Biological Anthropology

“…and for many other social characteristics (Harrison et al 1976a but also for women who move up the social ladder in marriage to be of higher I.Q. than those who remain in their birth class (Harrison et al 1971, Harrison et al 1974c, Kuchemann et al 1974.…”