Ch. i. in Norivay. 261 



riages to the whole population is as 1 to 130,* 

 which is a smaller proportion of marriages than 

 appears in the registers of any other country, ex- 

 cept Switzerland. 



One cause of this small number of marriages is 

 the mode in which the enrolments for the army 

 have been conducted till within a very few years. 

 Every man in Denmark and Norway born of a 

 farmer or labourer is a soldier.f Formerly the 

 commanding officer of the district might take 

 these peasants at any age he pleased; and he in 

 general preferred those that were from twenty- 

 five to thirty, to such as were younger. After 

 being taken into the service, a man could not 

 marry without producing a certificate, signed by 

 the minister of the parish, that he had substance 



* Thaarup's Statistik der Daniscben Monarchic, vol. ii. p. 4. 

 The proportion of yearly marriages to the whole population is one 

 of the most obvious criterions of the operation of the preventive 

 check, though not quite a correct one. Generally speaking, the 

 preventive check is greater than might be inferred from this crite- 

 rion ; because in the healthy countries of Europe, where a small 

 proportion of marriages takes place, the greater number of old 

 people living at the time of these marriages will be more than 

 counterbalanced by the smaller proportion of persons under the 

 age of puberty. In such a country as Norway, the persons from 

 20 to f>0, that is, of the most likely age to many, bear a greater 

 proportion to the whole population than in most of the other coun- 

 tries of Europe ; and consequently the actual proportion of mar- 

 riages in Norway, compared with that of others, will not express 

 the full extent in which the preventive check operates. 



t The few particulars, which I shall mention relating to Norway, 

 were collected during a summer excursion in that country in the 

 year 1799. 



