Considers endogamy, the custom forbidding marriage outside one's social class, which is central to social history.

1. Endogamy and social class in history: an overview Marco H. D. van Leeuwen and Ineke Maas; 2. Marriage choices in a plantation society: Bahia, Brazil Katherine Holt; 3. Deciding whom to marry in a rural two-class society: social homogamy and constraints in the marriage market in Rendalen, Norway, 1750¿1900 Hans Henrik Bull; 4. 'We have no proletariat': social stratification and occupational homogamy in industrial Switzerland, Winterthur 1909/10¿28 Reto Schumacher and Luigi Lorenzetti; 5. Pyrenean marriage strategies in the nineteenth century: the French Basque case Marie-Pierre Arrizabalaga; 6. Homogamy in a society orientated towards stability: a micro-study of a South Tyrolean market town, 1700¿1900 Margareth Lanzinger; 7. Finding the right partner: rural homogamy in nineteenth-century Sweden Martin Dribe and Christer Lundh; 8. Migration, occupational identity, and societal openness in nineteenth-century Belgium Bart Van de Putte, Michel Oris, Muriel Neven and Koen Matthijs; 9. Migration and endogamy according to social class: France, 1803¿1986 Jean-Pierre Pélissier, Danielè Rébaudo, Marco H. D. van Leeuwen and Ineke Maas; 10. 'They live in indifference together': marriage mobility in Zeeland, The Netherlands, 1796¿1922 Hilde Bras and Jan Kok; 11. Total and relative endogamy by social origin: a first international comparison of changes in marriage choices during the nineteenth century Ineke Maas and Marco H. D. van Leeuwen.