250 CULTURE 



custom will be evident if we compare the marriage 

 ages and birth-rates of different sections of the 

 population. In the classes who live by mining 

 and textile work, where the birth-rate is still 

 comparatively high, women are married, on an 

 average, 3 years, and men 7 years, earlier than in 

 the professional classes amongst which the 

 birth-rate is at its lowest. If we compare the 

 parishes of Bethnal Green and St. George in the 

 East with those of Mayfair and Belgravia, we find 

 that the percentages of married women who are 

 under 25 years of age, are respectively 20 and 

 7; and we may reasonably believe that the higher 

 birth-rate of the poorer parishes (37 per mille 

 against 16) results in a measure from the larger 

 proportion of young wives. The fall in the 

 general birth-rate which has occurred since 1871, 

 is, no doubt, too considerable to be accounted 

 for altogether by the avoidance or postponement 

 of marriage. The deliberate prevention of child- 

 bearing has been a contributing cause. But it 

 seems probable that if more women married and 

 at an earlier age, the birth-rate would recover 

 much of its former amplitude. 



Generally, marriage is postponed for pruden- 

 tial motives, and where children are profitable 

 to their parents, as for instance in the colliery 

 districts of South Wales, young people marry 

 early and have large families. The attitude of 

 religion towards marriage has also been of im- 

 portance. In religions which make a strong 

 appeal to the aesthetic feelings, the reproductive 

 impulses of mankind are boldly accepted as a gift 

 from Providence ; but those which express man's 

 ethical aspirations avert their attention from 

 these instincts as, in some way, shameful. We 

 find, accordingly, that in the religions of Asia, 

 in the Jewish faith, and in Roman Catholic 



