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Description

MARST gives an individual's current marital status.

Comparability

The major differences among the schedules and instructions for different countries is their treatment of dissolved marriages, and the meaning of blanks on the enumeration sheets. Norwegian enumerators were given explicit instructions for how to record separations and divorces. Canadian instructions made no mention of the possibility of annotations for divorcees, but some were made. In the United States no instructions for collecting this field were given, and divorcees were enumerated. No information on marital status is available in the 1850-1870 U.S. censuses.

The coding of MARST in NAPP is compatible with MARST in IPUMS-USA.

Blank responses for the MARST variable in 1881 Canadian census are meaningful, and typically denoted people who were still single. Instructions to 1881 Canadian enumerators indicated that valid responses were "M" for married, "W" for widowed, and "the sign - for all others, including children."

Users should be aware that because the British census of 1881 was a de facto census "married, spouse absent" does not denote a potentially dissolved marriage, as is assumed in the United States. It should also be noted that between 1857 (with the passing of the Matrimonial Causes Act) and the end of 1880 a total of 3,902 divorces were granted in England and Wales.

Further comparative information on marriage and divorce laws and statistics is available from Carroll D. Wright (Commissioner of Labor), A Report on Marriage and Divorce in the United States, 1867-1886; Including an Appendix Relating to Marriage and Divorce in Certain Countries in Europe. First Special Report of the United States Commissioner of Labor. (Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office: 1889).

Universe

Availability

• Canada: 1852, 1871, 1881, 1891, 1901
• Great Britain: 1851, 1881, 1881
• Iceland: 1801, 1901
• Mecklenburg: 1819
• Norway: 1801, 1865, 1875, 1900
• Sweden: 1900
• United States: 1880, 1880, 1900, 1910