Public attitudes, private attitudes, 1610-1935
Torrents, A.
Boletin de la Asociacion de Demografia Historica 10(1): 7-29
1992
ISSN/ISBN: 0213-1145 PMID: 12285135 Document Number: 318408
The author examines marital and baptismal records for a parish in Barcelona, Spain, from 1610 to 1935 to determine the effects of the Catholic church's religious calendar on public life and on couples' private lives, as indicated by seasonal variations in marriages and births. He finds that during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, just four percent of all marriages took place during Lent, with this figure rising to nine percent by the twentieth century. Conceptions appear to have been affected by both the agricultural and the Catholic calendars, with the periods just before Lent and after Easter showing higher fertility rates. A lessening of these effects during the early 1900s is noted.