Background: From a historical perspective, the transition from a pre-industrial to a modern society is associated with increasing social status heterogamy. As individuals’ acquired characteristics became more important for partner selection than inherited class status, the importance of status homogamy declined and marrying outside one’s own social group became more frequent. Objective: We investigate educational heterogamy in a university town at the end of the 19th century. We ask whether marriage of unequally educated partners is related to dissimilarity in the partners’ other characteristics. Ethnic background, origin (place of birth), and age difference between the spouses are considered as characteristics that may associate with sorting into educationally heterogamous unions. Methods: The analysis uses data from the 1897 census in Tartu. Using logistic regression modelling, we estimate how age difference, origin heterogamy, and ethnic heterogamy of the spouses associate with educational heterogamy. Results: The results indicate a positive relationship between educational heterogamy and marrying outside one’s own ethnic or origin group, but no effect for spousal age difference. Conclusions: Our study provides new evidence about marriage markets during modernisation, specifically regarding the role of education. We show that educationally heterogamous unions in Tartu were often also more heterogamous in terms of partners’ background characteristics. This suggests that the partner’s education may have motivated intermarriage by ethnicity and origin. Contribution: Previous literature on this period has focused on social homogamy based on occupational information, while research on educational assortative mating mostly exists for the second half of the 20th century and later. We contribute by studying the importance of education in marital selection in the early phase of educational expansion and economic modernisation.

中文翻译：

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教育扩张初期的教育异性恋：19世纪后期，爱沙尼亚塔尔图大学城的教育成果

背景：从历史的角度来看，从前工业社会向现代社会的转变与不断增长的社会地位异性相关。随着个人获得性格的特征对伴侣选择的重要性比继承的阶级地位更为重要，地位同性的重要性下降了，与自己的社会群体之外的人结婚变得更加频繁。目的：我们调查19世纪末在大学城中的教育异性恋。我们问受过同等教育的伴侣的婚姻是否与伴侣其他特征的不同有关。种族背景，出身（出生地）和配偶之间的年龄差异被认为是与接受教育异性婚姻的分类相关的特征。方法：分析使用来自塔尔图（Tartu）1897年人口普查的数据。使用logistic回归模型，我们估计了配偶的年龄差异，原籍异性恋和种族异性恋与教育异性恋是如何关联的。结果：结果表明，教育异性恋与异族或外来婚姻之间存在正相关关系，但对配偶年龄差异没有影响。结论：我们的研究为现代化过程中的婚姻市场提供了新的证据，特别是关于教育的作用。我们显示，就塔尔图而言，教育上的异性婚姻工会在伴侣的背景特征方面通常也更加异质。这表明伴侣的教育可能是出于种族和血统而促使通婚的。贡献：此时期以前的文献集中于基于职业信息的社会同性，而对教育性交配的研究主要存在于20世纪下半叶。我们通过研究在教育扩展和经济现代化的早期阶段教育在婚姻选择中的重要性来做出贡献。