113 The Conjugal Condition 



Tables, by whicli a woman who lived for one year -SAitliout in- 

 terruption with a man as bis wife, became a wife, though, at 

 first thought, it might seem just in principle, must evidently 

 have the effect of making such associations less disreputable, 

 lowering the standard of female morality, and leading to the 

 formation of illicit ties in the hope of their terminating in 

 honesty. The same remark applies to laws such as those of 

 Scotland, by which a marriage is held to be legally contracted 

 merely "by habit and repute ;^^ and, though to a less ex- 

 tent, it holds good in reference to an enactment by which 

 children born out of wedlock are legitimized by subsequent 

 marriage. Seduction, concubinage and bigamy are facili- 

 tated, if not actually encouraged, by such regulations ; and 

 libertinage, with its ine^dtable concomitant, celibacy, are 

 adverse to the growth of population as well as to moral 

 advancement. To the laws of marriage which obtain in Scot- 

 land must, in part, if not entirely, be ascribed the fact that so 

 much smaller a pi-oportion of the population of that country 

 are living in the marriage state than is the case in England and 

 Wales. Thus, while in the latter country 59 in every 100 

 women aged 20 and upwards are retui'ned as wives, but 49 in 

 every 100 of the same age in Scotland are married, that 

 is, one-sixth less — an immense difference for contigiious 

 parts of the same kingdom. The difference in the conjugal 

 condition of England and Scotland, or, to express it in 

 another form, the eifect of the disparit}^ in the proportion 

 living in a state of celibacy, namely as 30 males (England 

 and Wales) to 35 (Scotland), is manifested in the unequal rate 

 of increase of the population north and south of the Tweed*. 



While on the subject of celibacy, which, it is to be recol- 

 lected, is increased by the late age at vvhich people marry, as 

 well as by their not marrying at all, it may be remarked that 

 another of the many ways in whicli marriage laws may act 

 upon population, a.nd upon the morals of the people, is by 

 advancing the age of majority. This in France is four years 

 later than in England, and has no doubt much retarded the 

 progress of population in that country, and moreover in all 

 probability has proved a potent agent in producing that state 

 of things of which so saddening a picture is presented by 

 Michelet and others ; the great multitude of young women in 

 France, who are a prey to poverty and drudgery, struggling 



* Since 1801 the population of Scotland has increased but 74 per cent. , 

 while that of England and Wales has increased 97 per cent. 



