188 THE DESCENT OF MAN 



the years 1863 and 1864, with, the entire population above the 

 age of twenty in Scotland; for instance, out of every 1,000 

 unmarried men, between the ages of twenty and thirty, 

 14.97 annually died, while 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 dis- 

 tant 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, profligate, and 

 criminal classes, whose duration of life is low, do not com- 

 monly 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 bb 

 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 'outh, 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. Parr 

 attributes this to the poverty 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 elimination of 



^ I have taken the mean of the quinquennial means, given in "The Tenth 

 Annual Report of Births, Deaths, etc., in Scotland," ISel^ Th<j\J^\otation from 

 Dr. Stark is copied from an article in the "Daily News," Octob'ir IT, 1868, 

 ■which Dr. Farr considers very carefully written. 



