2003/01/01 by Peter Sköld, Sköld, Peter
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Arts and Humanities · #18. Jahrhundert #19. Jahrhundert #Culinary Culture and Tourism #Folklore, Mythology, and Literature Studies #Heirat #History of Emotions Research #Infektionskrankheit #Körperlichkeit #Partnerwahl #Schweden #Sweden #choice of partner #contagious disease #corporeality #eighteenth century #historical development #historische Entwicklung #nineteenth century #social attraction #soziale Anziehung #wedding
paper · pdf · doi:10.12759/hsr.28.2003.3.141-161
openalex publication_date 2003/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The present study shows that physical attraction played an important role for marriage. Pockmarked persons married about two years later than persons without disfigured faces. Pockmarked men experienced similar disadvantages to women at the marriage market. It is the birth cohorts between the last decades of the eighteenth century and the first decades of the nineteenth century that are of most interest for the study. During the period when these cohorts were acting at the marriage market there was a fairly equal balance between persons who had a previous experience of smallpox and persons without facial pockmarks. This - historically unique - situation created a marriage pattern where previously infected persons married much later than 'healthy'. Pockmarked persons also faced a considerably greater risk of never marrying and when they did so, they almost always chose a partner with a similar experience of smallpox. Correspondingly 'healthy' persons chose to marry each other.