demographic yearbook annuaire demographique 1951

are therefore misleading as to the actual rate of family
formation.
The completeness of the statistics within the framework
of each country's legal definition of marriage varies considerably,
depending on laws and practices with respect to
the registration of marriages and the compilation of the
results. Thus, some countries compile statistics only for civil
marriages, although religious marriages may also be legally
recognized; in other countries, the only records available
are church registers and the statistics therefore relate to
religious marriages only.
Wherever possible the data presented in the tables relate
to both civil and religious marriages (if both types of marriage
are ret.:ognized) and are the number of marriages
performed during the specified year, rather than the number
registered or the numbers of marriage licences issued. The
latter types of data represent fair approximations to the
number of marriages performed. However, lengthy or variable
lags in registration may distort the results somewhat.
The number of licences issued always overstates the number
of marriages performed since such licences are declarations
of intent and are not in all cases followed by marriage.
Known variations in definition or in coverage are noted in
the tables. By virtue of the legal concept to which the data
are bound, tribal or indigenous groups isolated from the
dominant culture are invariably excluded from the statistics.
Such exclusions are therefore not noted in the tables.
Table 24 presents for 121 areas the number of marriages
reported. for the years 1935 to 1950 and table 25 gives crude
rates for the years 1930 to 1950 for 112 areas. The rate is
the number of marriages per 1,000 persons in the corresponding
midyear population. The very low rates shown for
some countries, particularly in Latin America, are largely
attributable to the prevalence ofconsensual marriage, though
underregistration of legal marriages is in some cases a contributing
factor.
Crude marriage rates are of only limited value for analytical
purposes. Marriages are more appropriately related to
the "marriageable" population, i.e., widowed and divorced
persons and single persons who have reached the age of consent.
However, crude rates do measure changes and differences
in the frequency of marriage in a total population,
and fluctuations in the rate are often found to reflect changes
in economic and social conditions.
Table 26 presents statistics of divorces for 76 areas for the
period 1935 to 1950. The data are affected by the same kinds
of legalistic considerations as those described above in relation
to the marriage data. They are perhaps affected by even
wider variations among countries in the laws and regulations
relating to the dissolution of marriage. These laws range
from total prohibition (such countries, of course, report no
divorces) to the ready granting of divorce in response to a
simple statement of desire or intention. Naturally, numbers
are relatively lower in areas where divorces are difficult to
obtain, though variations in social mores are also a contributing
factor to variations in the frequency of divorce. These
two factors are not unrelated.
A divorce is generally defined as a dissolution of marriage
which is granted by legal process and which leaves the
recipients free to marry again. Data known to deviate from
this definition are so noted in the table.
A number ofcountries include annulments in their figures.
The number of these is usually quite small. An annulment
differs from a divorce in that the preceding marriage is
cancelled.
In a few cases the data include legal separations. Normally,
a legal separation is the granting of permission to the partners
of a marriage to live apart, terminating their mutual
marriage obligations (except that in some cases one spouse
is required to assume certain financial obligations) but prohibiting
marriage with another partner. In some areas,
Sweden for example, legal separation is typically a preparatory
phase to divorce, divorce being granted automatically
after a stated period of legal separation.
For countries where polygamic marriage is an accepted
institution, divorce statistics have a somewhat different
meaning. In these areas, the factor of freedom to marry a
different spouse is relatively unimportant, at least for males,
and divorce is more frequent than in other areas. Egypt,
for example, recognizes three types of divorce (revocable
divorces, suspended marriages and final divorces) all of
which are concerned with the conditions under which the
marriage in question may be resumed rather than whether
other marriages may be contracted. They are also concerned
with economic and financial obligations, but this is an
element of divorce regulations in other countries as well.
Only absolute numbers are presented in this volume,
mainly because of the problem of an appropriate base for
rates. The number of divorces is most properly related to
the number of married persons or the number of married
pairs, but statistics of the population classified by marital
status are not available for most of the countries and years
covered by the divorce data. A crude rate based on the
total population, on the other hand, can be somewhat misleading
as to the relative frequency of divorce among persons
who are married and are, therefore, in a position to obtain
divorces.
Another consideration that renders crude rates of limited
significance for comparative purposes is the factor of variation
in the regulations regarding divorce that have already
been mentioned. In any case, such rates cannot be taken as
indicative of the actual rate of marital dissolution from the
social and demographic point of view, for many marriages
are broken in other ways than through divorce (as through
death, desertion etc.). Divorce rates are likely to measure
how well the population can afford divorce rather than how
often family or marital dissolution actually occurs.
LIFE TABLES
Tables 27, 28 and 29 present life table functions for all
those countries for which they could be obtained from
official sources for any period since 1900. Figures are shown
for one-year age intervals at selected ages up to age 85
(for each year of age under 5 and for each fifth year of age
thereafter). Three functions are given: (a) the probability
of dying within one year or within a specified age interval
for persons of exact ages specified; (b) the survivors at
the beginning of each age interval out of a generation of
100,000; and (c) the ~ean after-life or the mean expectation
of life for persons at exact ages specified.
Data are shown for 53 areas in the first two tables and
for 52 areas in the third. As compared with the first issue
of the Yearbook, the coverage has been considerably increased,
but for many areas of the world no tables are
presented because of the lack of reliable basic information
on population and deaths.
Life tables are based on observed mortality conditions
for a selected period, but permit a more detailed analysis
of the implications and prospects inherent in those condi-
36