114 The Conjugal Condition 



1,689,116 and 1,767,194 respectively. The corresponding 

 numbers to these in Victoria* are 70,051 husbands, 61,955 

 wives, 5,147 Avidowers, and 3,966 widows, 88,355 bachelors, 

 and 12,545 spinsters, both of the age of 20 years and upwards. 



The figures which are representative of the two countries 

 are, therefore, most dissimilar. In Great Britain there are 

 more married women than married men ; in this colony the 

 married men are more numerous, outnumbering the wives in the 

 proportion of 113 to 100. In the former-mentioned country, 

 the widows are more than double the number of widowers ; 

 while in the latter, there are nearly 130 widowers for every 

 100 widows. In Great Britain the bachelors are only half as 

 numerous as the married men, whereas in Victoria there are 

 126 bachelors of the age of 20 and upwards for every 100 

 husbands. But the greatest disparity is in the proportion of 

 spinsters to bachelors. In Great Britain, the unmarried 

 women are in excess of the unmarried men; but in this 

 colony the figures given above show that, comparing equal 

 ages, there are rather more than seven bachelors for every 

 spinster — the excess of the former being no less than 75,810. 

 But even viewing our circumstances in this respect in a less 

 unfavourable light, and contrasting the number of bachelors 

 who have attained the age of majority, with the number of 

 unmarried females of the age of fifteen years and upwards, 

 we find the excess to be 61,859 — that there are but 22,082 

 of the latter to 83,941 of the former. Thus, if our social 

 habits were to be subjected to such a disorganisation as 

 would result from all those females who are performing the 

 duties of daughter, sister, housekeeper, domestic or fram 

 servant, and similar indispensable oftices, abandoning their 

 positions and entering into the married state, only 26 per 

 cent, of the bachelors would be provided with wives, leaving 

 74 ou.t of every 100 of them, besides the greater part of the 

 5147 widowers, who would find it impossible to obtain wives 

 within the colony. 



From the foregoing statement it will be perceived that the 

 efi^ective disparity of the numbers of the tvro sexest in this 

 country is but feebly conveyed by a comparison of the gross 

 numbers of males and females of all ages, because the juvenile 

 population under the age of sixteen years, which forms 31 



* In all the figures respecting Victoria in these pages the Chinese are 

 excluded. 

 f 160 males for 100 females. 



