136 THE DESCENT OF MAN. 



the ages of twenty and eighty, die In a much larger proportion 

 than the married: for instance, out of every 1000 unmarried men, 

 between the ages of twenty and thirty, 11.3 annually died, whilst 

 of the married only 6.5 died.^^ A similar law was proved to hold 

 good, during the years 1863 and 1864, with the entire population 

 above the age of twenty in Scotland: for instance, out of every 

 1000 unmarried men, between the ages of twenty and thirty, 14.97 

 annually died, whilst of the married only 7.24 died, that is less 

 than half.'^* Dr. Stark remarks on this, "Bachelorhood is more 

 "destructive to life than the most unwholesome trades, or than 

 "residence in an unwholesome house or district where there has 

 "never been the most distant attempt at sanitary improvement." 

 He considers that the lessened mortality is the direct result of 

 "marriage, and the more regular domestic habits which attend 

 "that state." He admits, however, that the intemperate, profli- 

 gate, and criminal classes, whose duration of life is low, do not 

 commonly marry; and it must likewise be admitted that men 

 with a weak constitution, ill health, or any great infirmity in body 

 or mind, will often not wish to marry, or will be rejected. Dr. 

 Stark seems to have come to the conclusion that marriage in itself 

 is a main cause of prolonged life, from finding that aged married 

 men still have a considerable advantage in this respect over the 

 unmarried of the same advanced age; but every one must have 

 known instances of men, who with weak health during youth 

 did not marry, and yet have survived to old age, though remaining 

 weak, and therefore always with a lessened chance of life or of 

 marrying. There is another remarkable circumstance which 

 seems to support Dr. Stark's conclusion, namely, that widows and 

 widowers in France suffer in comparison with the married a very 

 heavy rate of mortality; but Dr. Farr attributes this to the pov- 

 erty and evil habits consequent on the disruption of the family, 

 and to grief. On the whole we may conclude with Dr. Farr that 

 the lesser mortality of married than of unmarried men, which 

 seems to be a general law, "is mainly due to the constant elimina- 

 "tion of imperfect types, and to the skillful selection of the finest 

 "individuals out of each successive generation;" the selection re- 

 lating only to the marriage state, and acting on all corporeal, in- 

 tellectual, and moral qualities.'^' We may, therefore, infer that 



== Dr. Farr, ibid. The quotations given below are extracted from the 

 same striking paper. 



2* I have taken the mean of the quinquennial means, given in 'Tlie 

 Tenth Annual Report of Births, Deaths, &c., in Scotland,' 1867. The 

 quotation from Dr. Stark is copied from an article in the 'Daily News,' 

 Oct. 17th, 1S6S, which Dr. Farr considers very carefully written. 



25 Dr. Duncan remarks ("Fecundity, Fertility,' &c., 1871, p. 334) on this 

 subject: "At every age the healthy and beautiful go over from the 

 "unmarried side to the married, leaving the unmarried columns 

 "crowded with the sickly and unfortunate." 



