The demographic transition which occurred in the West before 1900 has been attributed to the practice of delayed marriage and a significant degree of celibacy (Hajnal, 1953; 1965). In Eastern Europe where this transition occurred much later, the nuptiality patterns have been associated with historical differences in control over the nuclear family by the extended family unit (Sklar, 1974). Sklar has noted that in the late marrying Czech, Baltic, and Polish provinces, nuclear families had long been residentially and economically separate from the wider kingroup, while in the early marrying Balkans, nuclear families were intertwined with ramified kin networks.