Overview
West of this line, the average age of marriage for women was 23 or more, men 26, spouses were relatively close in age, a substantial number of women married for the first time in their thirties and forties, and 10% to 20% of adults never married. East of the line, the mean age of both sexes at marriage was earlier, spousal age disparity was greater and marriage more nearly universal. Subsequent research has amply confirmed Hajnal's continental divide, and what has come to be known as the 'Western European marriage pattern', although historical demographers have also noted that there are significant variations within the region; to the west of the line, about half of all women aged 15 to 50 years of age were married while the other half were widows or spinsters; to the east of the line, about seventy percent of women in that age bracket were married while the other thirty percent were widows or nuns. That a number of widows also remarried also kept the age of marriage comparatively high; if women married for the first time at twenty-one years of age and twenty percent of all weddings featured a widowed bride and the average age of remarriage was forty years then the average marriage age for women would be 24.8 years: 21×0.8+40×0.2=24.8
Read more about this topic: Hajnal Line