456 



The Journal of Heredity 



\-cry lar<^e number of clerj^ymen must 

 marry shortly after they leave the 

 theological seminary — probabl>' soon 

 after they receive their first ai)point- 

 ments. This is doubtless explainable 

 by the fact that ministers as a class are, 

 bv reason of their more or less emotional 



married only once, it appears that they 

 married at various ages in the following 

 numbers : 



NUMBER OFCHILDRtN 



METHODIST FAINIHJES 



The solid black line shows the distribu- 

 tion of size of family among jjrominent 

 Methodists who married l)ut once. 

 The number of childless households is 

 seen to be 11%, and the most fretjuent 

 size of family to consist of two children, 

 such families making up more than 20% 

 of all. 



The dotted line shows the size of families 

 among prominent Methodists who mar- 

 ried twice. It might be expected that 

 two women would bear considerably 

 more children than one women, but 

 this is true here to a very limited extent. 

 The most frequent family still consists 

 of two children. (Fig. 6.) 



temperament, "marrying men:" that 

 the scope of sexual selection is wide 

 for them; and that a clergyman finds 

 a wife almost a necessity in his pastorate. 

 Confining the study to those who 



To calculate the birth rate from these 

 marriages, all were rejected which had 

 not at least twenty years' standing in 

 1915, when it was assumed that most 

 of the data in the book were compiled. 

 This reduced the number of marriages 

 to 1,512. The entire distribution of the 

 birthrate from these marriages will be 

 found in Table I (at the end of this 

 ]japer) and is presented graphically in 

 Fig. 6. It is evident that Methodist 

 clergymen have tended to standardize 

 the two-child family, which is so much 

 in evidence among college professors 

 and in other educated classes all over 

 the civilized world. There are moi-e 

 families of two children than of any 

 other size. It must be remembered, 

 however, that all the children dealt 

 with here are surviving children: they 

 have at least passed the perils of 

 infancy. If a line is drawn at 2.3 

 children, it is found that there are just 

 as many families on one side as the 

 other. This is a dangerously small 

 birth rate, even for a net birth rate. 

 The average is raised (to 3.12 children) 

 only because there are enough large 

 families to countcrl)alance the larger 

 number of small ones. 



Small as it is. this birth rate compares 

 favorablv with that of other men of 



