Ch. xi. On the Fruitfulness of Marriages. 487 



widows, if we wish to know the proportion of 

 males which lives to marry, we must subtract full 

 ± from the marriages instead of ^*. According 

 to this correction, if each marriage yielded 4 

 births, it would only be necessary that two male 

 children out of 5 should live to marry in order to 

 keep up the population ; and if each marriage 

 yielded 5 births, less than one third would be ne- 

 cessary for this purpose ; and so for the other cal- 

 culations. In estimating the proportion of males 

 living to marry, some allowance ought also to be 

 made for the greater proportion of male births. 



Three causes appear to operate in producing 

 an excess of the births above the deaths: 1. the 

 prolifickness of marriages; 2. the proportion of 

 the born which lives to marry ; and 3. the easi- 

 ness of these marriages compared with the ex- 

 pectation of life, or the shortness of a generation 

 by marriage and birth, compared with the passing 

 away of a generation by death. This latter cause 

 Dr. Price seems to have omitted to consider. For 

 though he very justly says that the rate of increase, 

 supposing the prolific powers the same, depends 

 upon the encouragement to marriage, and the ex- 



* Of 28,473 marriages in Pomerania, 5,964 of the men were 

 widowers. Sussmilcb, vol. i. tables, p. 98. And according to 

 Busching,of 14,759 marriages in Prussia and Silesia, 3,071 of the 

 men were widowers. Sussmilch, vol iii. tables, p. 95. Muret 

 calculates that 100 men generally marry 110 women. Memoires 

 par la Societc Economique de Berne. Annee 1766, premiere 

 partie, page 30. 



