The family with no sons or one whose only sons were still children would view a marriageable age daughter very differently.
If they have any children of marriageable age, the household will receive ample attention.
Such gossip, if leaked, will certainly jeopardize the social status of the family with knock-on effects on all marriageable youths in their kin group.
Such women had to be of marriageable age and either unmarried or widowed.
High mortality also played a significant role because many fathers died before their sons reached marriageable age.
This was due to the shortage of males at the marriageable ages and was further aggravated by heavy male unemployment at ages 20-34.
Table 3 shows the availability of males and females at the marriageable ages according to religion in 1971.
In all probability the numbers in the younger age groups will be further augmented by future immigration as they grow to marriageable age.
