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Title: Did Irish Marriage Patterns Survive the Emigrant Voyage? IrishAmerican Nuptiality, 1880-1920

Citation Type: Journal Article

Publication Year: 1999

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Abstract: The Irish at the end of the nineteenth century were famous for three demographic behaviours: they migrated in huge numbers, were reluctant to marry, and had large families when they did marry.This paper focuses on one explanation for the second facet of this Irish demographic regime, marriage patterns. More than one observer has claimed that Irish emigrants to other countries were unusually likely to remain single and argued on this basis that nuptiality in Ireland reflected cultural traits that traveled with emigrants when they left the country. We consider this argument by studying the nuptiality of Irish emigrants in the context of the country that consistently drew a majority of all Irish emigrants in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the United States. We use census samples to study whether and how much the nuptiality of Irish-Americans differed from other Americans, and find that the nuptiality of Irish-Americans in this period is both less distinctive and more complex than has been thought. Irish nuptiality and Irish demographic history more broadly have a rich historiography. 1 Most authors view Irish demographic behaviour as conditioned by a cultural inheritance but driven primarily by changing economic conditions. These authors, who include Connell, Guinnane, Kennedy, and Walsh, stress different aspects of economic conditions but agree that the peculiarities ofIrish culture, if any, playa small role in Irish marriage patterns. An alternative view stresses distinctive Irish cultural traits. Arguments differ, but most suggest a form ofsexual repression thatmade Irish men and women unwilling to marry. 2 Our paper is a cautionary tale. Irish-Americans were more likely to remain unmarried than were natives, and in fact were less likely to marry than just about any other European immigrant group in the United States. But the differences were smaller than implied by the historiography. Ifwe compare Irish immigrants to the natives most like them - urban people of relatively low socio-economic status - we see that the Irish in the United States were not so exotic after all. We find important differences between male and female marriage patterns, differences that are not consistent with the culture story. In fairness, we should note that most of the systematic, quantitative evidence on Irish-American nuptiality pertains to the twentieth century. We present no evidence on this later period, focusing instead on the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when marriage patterns in Ireland became most distinctive.

Url: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/033248939902600102

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Authors: Foley, Mark C.; Guinnane, Timothy W.

Periodical (Full): Irish Economic and Social History

Issue: 0

Volume: 26

Pages: 15-34

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Family and Marriage, Migration and Immigration, Race and Ethnicity

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