A demographic study of the British ducal families

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Abstract
The available records of the ducal families of the British Isles have been studied in order to determine fertility and mortality among the highest social class. The expectation of life was considerably higher for females than males, but a large part of the difference could be explained by deaths from violence. Mortality fell rather abruptly about the middle of the eighteenth century, and perhaps again in the twentieth century. At other times mortality has fallen gradually. The mortality of the aristocracy was similar in Britain and the Continent. The differences are rather in favour of Britain, especially for children and old people. The mean age at marriage rose from 22 to 29 for men, and from 17 to 24 for women, between the fourteenth and the eighteenth centuries. Thereafter it has scarcely varied. Eldest sons have always married at younger ages than did their brothers. Between about 1760 and 1860, the rate of fertility was remarkbly high. To a large extent, falling mortality accounts for the sudden rise in fertility in the mid-18th century, but it does not explain all the increase. After 1860 or so, fertility fell, as in the general population, and at present ducal families are just failing to reproduce themselves. In every period, roughly one in six of all marriages of completed fertility were childless. The decline in fertility was thus brought about by a reduction in the proportion of large families. Especially since 1700, marriages into another peerage family produced more children than did other marriages. There is no evidence that the first child was significantly more often male than were subsequent children.

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