A Sampling Survey of Intervals between Registration of Wedding and Notification of Birth of First Child in Sendai City

Abstract

The record of family registration of 776 couples who were legally registered(HONSEKI) in Sendai city were analyzed. The couples whose grooms were born in 1926 and later who had got married between 1945 to 1974 in first marriage and who had at least two children were randomly selected from a regional frame in Sendai city. The period between the date of registration of wedding and that of notification of birth of first child is determined by the duration of de facto but not de jure marriage (NAIEN). In Japan the period of temporary informal marriage tended to be prolonged in many couples, keeping under the juridical and customary restraint, before the new civil law enacted 1948. The period between the date of registration of wedding and that of notification of birth of first child is determined by the duration of de facto but not de jure marriage (NAIEN). In Japan the period of temporary informal marriage tended to be prolonged in many couples, keeping under the juridical and customary restraint, before the new civil law enacted 1948. Though the majority of our samples had got married after the establishment of the law, some of them might do all that were required by the conventionalities. Under these social circumstances, our results of survey are as follows: 1) The intervals between date of registration of wedding and occurence of birth of first child of two age groups were compared with cumulative percentage of duration. The interval from registration of marriage to birth of the first child was shorter for the couples whose grooms were under age 25 at the time of wedding than those whosegrooms were age 25 and over throughout the observation periods. 2) When the couples were classified by the periods, 1945-54, 1955-64, 1965-74 of their date of registration of wedding, the said intervals had been prolonged through the descent periods successively. 3) In the form of notification of birth, it is requested to fill up the date of start of cohabitation. With the view of comparing the length of informal marriage, 352 notifications of first birth in 1974 were examined. Parents of these children were dwellers in Sendai city, and their fathers were born in 1926 and later. It was shown that the intervals from the beginning of cohabitation to birth in these 352 couples were longer than the intervals derived from the couples of legal registration(HONSEKI)