Marriage patterns in Kyrgyzstan

Mikhail B. Denissenko, Moscow State University

The marriage processes in Central Asia are studied a little, despite of the existence of significant statistical material, stored from the moment of the first census in the Russian empire in 1897. The evolution of marriage patterns of most numerous peoples of Kyrgyzstan for 100 years was in the focus of our work. As the data show, at the beginning of the XX century their parameters of marriage differed essentially. The Kyrgyz nomads were characterized by super early marriages for women (SMAM is hardly more than 16 years), by relatively late marriages for men (SMAM is higher than 24 years). Women of Uzbek husbandmen married about 18 years. The Russian settlers were the carriers of the East European marriage patterns. The research shows how the marriage parameters of Kyrgyzstan peoples have changed under the influence of modernization in the Soviet period and in the first post Soviet decade.