EARLY MARRIAGES. 251 



among the evils arising from premature marriages 

 " abortions, early death of children, excessive families, 

 twins, triplets, idiots, and sterility," says : " In 

 woman the age of maturity is twenty to twenty- 

 five ; in men it is later, probably by at least five 

 years; and you will pardon the interpolation here 

 of the reflection, well worthy of being fully dwelt 

 on, that this late ascertained physiological law tallies 

 with the old and wisest counsels as to the nubility 

 of men and women a part of the grand subject of 

 morals and medicine. At this age a woman has the 

 lowest risk of sterility, the greatest likelihood of 

 having healthy children that will long survive, the 

 greatest likelihood of herself surviving childbirth, the 

 lowest risk of having abortions, of having excessive 

 family, of having plural pregnancy, and of bringing 

 forth idiots." * 



Even the children of healthy and well-fed boys 

 and girls of the better classes are decidedly inferior 

 to the children of mature parents. That has been 

 proven. What, then, must we expect from the pre- 

 mature marriages of the stunted, pale-faced boys 

 and girls of our great cities ? In them the deteri- 

 orating influences of city life have produced a class 

 largely lacking in vitality a class which is, as we 

 have seen, actually in process of decay, and which, 

 even at its best, could not produce an offspring 

 with the normal quantum of vital energy. Yet this 

 is the very class among which we find premature 

 * Lancet, March 23, 1889. 



