INFLUENCE OF MARRIAGE ON DEATH-RATE. 243 



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 bachelor- 

 hood. 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 Kegistrar-Greneral's return suffices to 

 prove the influence of poverty on the marriage-rate. 

 I 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 have 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 favour- 

 able to longevity than that of a bachelor. The mere 

 fact that a man has a wife and family depending upon 



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