230 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ho or she might find that there were advantages and not disadvantages 

 in early marriage, and that the most prudent course was to follow their 

 natural instincts. 



We have now to consider the probable gain in the number and 

 worth of adult offspring to these favored couples. First as regards the 

 effect of reducing the age at marriage. There is unquestionably a 

 tendency among cultured women to delay or even to abstain from 

 marriage; they dislike the sacrifice of freedom and leisure, of oppor- 

 tunities for study and of cultured companionship. This has to be 

 reckoned with. I heard of the reply of a lady official of a College for 

 Women to a visitor who inquired as to the after life of the students. 

 She answered that one third profited by it, another third gained little 

 good, and a third were failures. 'But what becomes of the failures?' 

 'Oh, they marry.' 



There appears to be a considerable difference between the earliest 

 age at which it is physiologically desirable that a woman should marry 

 and that at which the ablest, or at least the most cultured, women 

 usually do. Acceleration in the time of marriage, often amounting to 

 7 years, as from 28 or 29 to 21 or 22, under influences such as those 

 mentioned above, is by no means improbable. What would be its effect 

 on productivity ? It might be expected to act in two ways : 



(1) By shortening each generation by an amount roughly propor- 

 tionate to the diminution in age at which marriage occurs. Suppose 

 the span of each generation to be shortened by one sixth, so that six 

 take the place of five, and that the productivity of each marriage is un- 

 altered, it follows that one sixth more children will be brought into the 

 world during the same time, which is, roughly, equivalent to increasing 

 the productivity of an unshortened generation by that amount. 



(2) By saving from certain barrenness the earlier part of the child- 

 bearing period of the woman. Authorities differ so much as to the direct 

 gain of fertility due to early marriage that it is dangerous to express an 

 opinion. The large and thriving families that I have known were the 

 offspring of motliers who married very young. 



The next influence to be considered is that of healthy homes. These 

 and a simple life certainly conduce to fertility. They also act indirectly 

 by preserving lives that would otherwise fail to reach adult age. It is 

 not necessarily the weakest who perish in this way, for instance, zymotic 

 disease falls indiscriminately on the weak and the strong. 



Again, the children would be healthier and therefore more likely in 

 their turn to become parents of a healthy stock. The great danger to 

 high civilizations, and remarkably so to our own, is the exhaustive 

 drain upon the rural districts to supply large towns. Those who come 

 up to the towns may produce large families, but there is much reason to 



