population regulation, ecology, and political economy in preindustrial Iceland

Social controls on sex and marriage, rooted in the political economy, regulated population in preindustrial Iceland. Married women had high fertility, offset by low illegitimacy and a means prerequisite for marriage. The number of married householders in their childbearing years responded to changes in population pressure, adjusting fertility and moving the population toward about 50,000, a level determined by both the sub‐Arctic environment and the political economy, which discouraged full use of available technology. [population regulation, population and agriculture, population and environment, population and political economy, preindustrial Iceland]