INFLUENCE OF FAMILY LIFE 207 



We need not, therefore, be surprised at the fact that this 

 category of individuals manifests a marked tendency to suicide. 

 When we come to consider the two categories of married men, we 

 find that the rate of suicide among them is 336 + 644 = 980 ; 

 which is practically the same as the total for bachelors of forty- 

 two years (975). To this total of 980, however, the married 

 men with children contributed only 336. The total of 336 is to 

 975 as 100 : 290. We may thus say that for every 100 suicides 

 among married men with children there are 290 suicides among 

 bachelors of the same average age. For in comparing these 

 suicide-rates it is important to take the average age of the 

 respective categories into consideration, because suicide has the 

 tendency to increase pari passu with age ; and the old are con- 

 siderably more liable to it than the young. The average age of 

 married men in France can be calculated as being forty-six 

 years 8J- months, so that the category of bachelors of forty-two 

 years may be fitly compared with that of married men. We 

 may, therefore, formulate our proposition as follows : The co- 

 efficient of preservation of married men with children as against 

 iachdors of the same average age is 100 : 290, or 2*9. 



To the total of 980 suicides on the part of married men in 

 general, married men without children, as we have seen, contri- 

 bute 644. Their coefiicient of preservation, as compared with 

 that of bachelors of forty-two years, is thus much less than the 

 coefficient of married men with children, 644 being to 975 as 

 100 : 150. We may therefore say that the coefficient of 'pre- 

 servation of married men without children as against bachelors of 

 the same average age is 1'5. 



The contrast between the suicide-rate of bachelors of sixty 

 years and that of bachelors of forty-two years is very marked ; 

 much more so than the contrast between the suicide-rate of 

 spinsters of sixty years and that of spinsters of forty-two years. 

 Suicide is almost a monopoly of the male sex ; but the propor- 

 tional difEerence between 1,504 and 975 is far greater than that 



