Remarriage in a pre-transitional Italian Community

Marco Breschi, University of Sassari
Alessio Fornasin, University of Udine
Matteo Manfredini, University of Parma
Laura Rizzi, University of Udine
Giovanna Gonano, University of Sassari

This paper examines specifically the remarriage pattern of a nineteenth-century Italian small town, Casalguidi. The first part of the work has been devoted to analyse the main features of remarriage in historical Italy, where divorce was forbidden and the death of the spouse was the sole cause determining the population at risk of remarriage. The aggregate results substantially confirm the existence of a marked gender differential in the propensity to remarry, and show the importance of biological age in the likelihood to enter a new marriage. By making use of reconstructed life-histories, we can look for other possible elements determinant in modifying the individual risk of remarriage. Possible familial strategies, influence of socio-economic factors, relevance of dependent children still alive are all other possible influential factors that one might want to consider in addition to those previously emerged at the aggregate level.