Marriage Seasonality: Yet Another Way Modernity Is Failing You

Weddings in Sweden used to be highly seasonal, with a big spike in December, and then they weren't anymore, according to a new paper based on statistics from 1680 to 1895. The change was due to "increasing work intensity over the year" relative to the old agricultural economy, and also "the privatization of marriage."

This is a Robert Putnam-esque metric I hadn't thought of using, but I can see how weddings' being spread out over the whole year might indicate, one, a very weak communal sense of the rhythm of the calendar and, two, weak community investment in everybody's weddings and marriages.

Sure enough, marriage seasonality in America is pretty low.