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average of 825 per 100,000 of population to an 

 annual average of 975 ; and the largest number of 

 marriages fell in the third year from the pestilence, and 

 amounted to 1035 per 100,000 of population. 



Many men defer marrying for several years after 

 they are in possession of the means of doing so, and a 

 few never marry at all. 



But as the principles of human action, especially 

 in regard to marrying, are pretty much the same 

 everywhere, the law of averages prevails, and the 

 result is the established ratio between the number of 

 marriages and births and the number of deaths in a 

 community. 



Some populationists seriously treat, as if they 

 affected the general movement of population, several 

 questions which do not in any degree affect it, and of 

 which the importance and interest are wholly of a 

 social nature. Such questions are the proportion of 

 illegitimate to legitimate births, the relative fecundity 

 of the marriages of different countries, and the marrying 

 ages of the different classes of a community. 



The number of illegitimate births in a community, 

 as it is large or small, lessens in its degree the number 

 of marriages. Thus in Vienna, where the proportion 

 of illegitimate to legitimate births is excessive, the 

 marriage-rate is excessively low. But the labour 

 market is not thereby affected, as illegitimate children 

 enter it in the same proportion as legitimate children, 

 and it is found that the birth-rate holds the same 

 proportion to the death-rate that it would do if all 



