translate English to French: Because common-law unions were relatively rare in 1971, it is assumed in this analysis that the 1971 counts are close to counts of the legally married population, and consequently the rates for the three time periods are comparable.
Lunion libre étant relativement rare en 1971, on présume que les chiffres de 1971 correspondent approximativement à la population de Canadiens mariés. Les taux des trois périodes sont donc comparables.