Relationships between nuptiality and fertility: a case study on the Spanish Province of Navarre, 1786-1991

In this article we analyse the influence of age at marriage and percentage of definitive celibacy on marital and total fertility over the past two hundred years in the Spanish province of Navarre. A considerable percentage of the fall in marital fertility in the first half of the twentieth century in rural Navarre was due to the postponement in women's age at marriage. On the other hand, Navarre offers many exceptions to the scenario often endorsed by researchers that sees marriage as the prime mechanism for regulating reproduction in traditional societies. While in the northern part of the province this mechanism did bring about the reduction of total fertility, in the southern part the fall was primarily a consequence of a fall in marital fertility.