116 TJie Conjugal Condition 



as the men are concerned, are tliatj bnt for the great difficulty 

 of procuring wives, there would at the respective ages indicated 

 be 62 married instead of 42, 52 instead of 38, and 79 

 instead of 61; and that, but for the unusually favorable posi- 

 tion in which the women are placed, there would be but 57 

 and 55 of them married where there are 78, and only 70 

 where there are 81. It may further be added that, as 

 regards the men, these figures cannot be considered as fully 

 representing their difficulty in procuring wives, when the 

 fact is taken into account that the laboring population of 

 Victoria is better circmnstanced, so far as the ability to sup- 

 port a family is concerned, than the mass of the inhabitants 

 of almost any other country ; and it is a universally recog- 

 nised principle, that in all old countries pressure of population 

 against the means of subsistence acts as a check upon mar- 

 riage, or causes a very large number to postpone the age at 

 which they would, under less unfavorable circumstances, marry. 



Pursuing further the facts illustrative of the deficiency of 

 adult females, as compared with the demand for wives, we 

 find that while the British census returns show that of the 

 whole number of females of the age of fifteen to twenty but 

 2| per cent, are married, the inducements to early marriage, 

 as regards our female population, are such that there are over 

 16i per cent, married at that age. Of the number of females 

 li%dng at the age-period twenty to tAventj^-five, the proportion 

 married in Great Britain is but 30 per cent., while in Vic- 

 toria it is nearly 63 per cent. At the next period (twenty- 

 five to thirty) there are 82 per cent, married in Victoria, and 

 57 per cent, only in Great Britain. At the age-period thirty 

 to thirty-five the proportion in Great Britain rises to 70, and 

 in this country is 88. So much for the proportions of the 

 married. 



As regards the proportions of the unmarried at difi'ereut 

 periods of age, these are, of course, the inverse of the 

 married. Of the male population at the age twenty to forty, 

 there are 60 in 100 unmarried in Victoria, and only 46 in 

 100 are unmarried in Great Britain; at the period forty to 

 sixty there are 30 unmarried here, and 12 there. Of the 

 female population the proportion in this colony of the un- 

 married at the age twenty to forty is only 19 per cent., and is 

 in Great Britain 42 per cent. Of the age forty to sixty there 

 are little more than 4 in 100 unmarried in Victoria, against 

 14 in 100 in Great Britain. 



Such are the leading features of the difference between the 



