v/HAP. V. Civilised Nations. 139 



ages the death-rate is higher in towns than in rural districts, 

 '• and during the first five years of life the town death-rate is 

 " almost exactly double that of the rural districts." As these re- 

 turns include both the rich and the poor, no doubt more than 

 twice the number of births would be requisite to keep up the 

 number of the very poor inhabitants in the towns, relatively to 

 those in the country. With women, marriage at too early an 

 age is highly injurious ; for it has been found in France that, 

 " twice as many wives under twenty die in the year, as died out 

 " of the same number of the unmarried." The mortality, also, 

 of husbands under twenty is "excessively high,"^^ but what the 

 cause of this may be, seems doubtful. Lastly, if the men who 

 prudently delay marrying until they can bring up their families 

 in comfort, were to select, as they often do, women in the prime 

 of life, the rate of increase in the better class would be only 

 slightly lessened. 



It was established from an enormous body of statistics, taken 

 during 1853, that the unmarried men throughout France, 

 between 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 thiity, 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 mortaUty is the direct result of " marriage, and the 

 " more regular domestic habits which attend that state." He 

 admits, however, that the intemperate, profligate, and criminal 

 classes, whose duration of life is low, do not commonly marry ; 

 and it must likewise be admitted that men with a weak constitu- 



** These quotations are taker from the same striking paper. 



from our highest authority on such ^■' I have taken the mean of the 



questions, namely, Dr. Farr, in his quinquennial means, given in ' The 



paper 'On the Influence of Mar- Tenth Annual Report of Births, 



riage on the Mortality of the French Deaths, &c., in Scotland,' 1867. 



People,' read before the Nat. Assoc. The quotation from Dr. Stark is 



<br the Promotion of Social Science, copied from an article in the ' Daily 



1858. News,' Oct. 17th, 1868, which Dr. 



23 Dr. Farr, ibid. The quota- Farr considers very carefully writ- 



doas given bilow arc c-itracted ten. 



