264 MARRIAGE AND DISEASE. 



cruelty of tlie children of the aged drive them beyond 

 the first shallows of criminality. 



From all this it is evident that marriages among 

 the immature and the aged are equally opposed to 

 the maintenance of physical, mental, and moral health 

 among the people. Such unions are the cause of an 

 enormous amount of child suffering and death. From 

 the offspring of these unions are largely recruited the 

 ranks of the idiotic, the epileptic, the insane, the 

 scrofulous, the deaf-mute, the criminal, and every class 

 of the unfit, which are a drag upon the state, a 

 fruitful source of contamination to the health of the 

 populace, and a reproach to our civilisation. 



No man having respect for his own health or that 

 of his children should marry until he has at least 

 gained his majority, and the nearer he approaches the 

 age of 25 before he undertakes the responsibilities of 

 the married state, so much the better for both him- 

 self and his children. 



Men who are past their prime should be very care- 

 ful in the selection of wives, and should remember 

 that the health and vigour of a mature young mother 

 may largely neutralise their own unfitness as fathers. 

 From this last remark it is not to be understood that 

 the aged man should marry an undeveloped girl, as so 

 many do, but a mature woman of 25 to 30 years of 

 age. During the year 1889 no less than 75 men 

 of 45 to 75 married girls of 20 to 15, and no fewer 

 than 193 women of 35 to 50 married men of 2 1 or 

 less. (These are the figures as given by the parties 



