AbstractIn ‘Recombinant Family Formation Strategies’(JHS vol. 2 #2) David Levine endeavoured to place the Demographic Transition in northwestern Europe in historical perspective, taking issue with the ahistorical abstraction of the mainstream modernization accounts of the transition. While in complete agreement with this objective, I thought there was a certain vagueness at the heart of Levine's bold synopsis. In this response, I have endeavoured to sketch in a few of the missing links, focusing on the Western European pattern of late and non‐universal marriage. When did this distinctive nuptial regime first emerge and become generalized? How is it to be explained? What contribution, if any, did late marriage make to the advent of industrial capitalism in northwestern Europe? And what happened to the pattern in the population boom after