Marriage Patterns in Pakistan through Net Nuptiality Tables-1968 & 1971

In studying the processes which bring about changes in thesize and composi¬tion of a population, an appraisal of marriage patternsis of special significance because the age and rate of marriageformation relate directly'to changes in popu¬lation composition. In asociety like Pakistan where fertility takes place pre¬dominantly throughthe formation of families by marriages, the frequency of mar¬riages atdifferent ages has direct bearing on the effective length ofreproductive period. Thus, for getting a proper insight into thedemographic phenomena, statistics on marriages are also of greatinterest to demographers along with infor¬mation on fertility, mortalityand migration. Studies on frequencies of marriages by age, referred toin the demographic terminology as nuptiality studies, are rather limitedin demographic literature, particularly in comparison with studies onfertility and mortality. There are two obvious reasons for relativelylow priority given to this subject in spite of due re¬cognition of itsimportance. Firstly, because of the rapid growth of population since theturn of the century the role of fertility and mortality as directdeterminants of growth patterns has been much more significant. As aresult, the major interest of researchers has remained focused on thevital events contributing to the natural increase, viz. births anddeaths. Secondly, a regular system of marriage registra¬tion is limitedto a few countries in the world, and in most of the other countries,such information is either not available or if in some cases it isavailable, no regular statistics are compiled out of them. The limitedavailability of statistics on in¬cidence of marriage through vitalregistration does not imply that information on marriage patterns is notavailable from other sources. In fact much work has been done on thebasis of data on age distribution of population by marital statusprovided by censuses or surveys.