INFLUENCE OF MARRIAGE ON DEATH-RATE. 245 



because we are left wholly in doubt as to the propor- 

 tion which subsists between the effects to be ascribed 

 to the two causes thus shown to be in operation. It 

 scarcely required the evidence of statistics to prove 

 that each cause must operate to some extent. It is 

 perfectly obvious, on the one hand, that although 

 hundreds of men who would be held by insurance 

 companies to be ( bad lives ' may contract marriage, 

 yet on the whole. a principle of selection is in operation 

 which must tend to bring the healthier portion of the 

 male community into the ranks of the married, and to 

 leave the unhealthier in the state of bachelorhood. A 

 little consideration will show also that, on the whole, 

 the members of the less healthy trades, very poor 

 persons, habitual drunkards, and others whose prospects 

 of long life are unfavourable, must (on the average of 

 a large number) be more likely to remain unmarried 

 than those more favourably situated. Another fact 

 drawn from the Registrar-General's returns suffices to 

 prove the influence of poverty on the marriage-rate. 

 We refer to the fact that marriages are invariably 

 more numerous in seasons of prosperity than at other 

 times. Improvident marriages are undoubtedly nume- 

 rous, but prosperity and adversity ho ve their influence, 

 and that influence not unimportant, on the marriage 

 returns. On the other hand, it is perfectly obvious 

 that the life of a married man is likely to be more 

 favourable to longevity than that of a bachelor. The 

 mere fact that a man has a wife and family depending 

 ipon him will suffice to render him more careful of his 



