318 DR MATTHEWS DUNCAN ON SOME 



these 102 were mothers; 20 were not mothers; or about 1 in 6 had no family. 

 In all, of 467 wives and widows, 410 had offspring ; 57 had none ; or about one 

 marriage in 8 was unproductive. Of these last 57, six had not been 5 years 

 married, and there were other six above the age of 45 when married. If we sub- 

 tract these 12, we have, of 455 marriages, 410 productive; 45 unproductive; or 

 1 in 10?jth without issue. 



"Returns such as I have just now adduced are exceedingly difficult to 

 obtain, in consequence of no registers being anywhere kept, so far as I know, that 

 could be brought to bear upon the question. If it had been otherwise, I would here, 

 if possible, have gladly appealed to a larger body of statistical facts, in order to 

 arrive at a more certain and determinate average of the proportion of unpro- 

 ductive marriages in the general community. For the purpose, however, of 

 extending this basis of data, I have analysed, with some care and trouble, the 

 history of 503 marriages, detailed by Sharpe, in his work on the ' British Peer- 

 age,' for 1833. Among British peers, there were 401 marriages with issue ; 102 

 without issue ; or of 503 existing marriages among British peers in 1833, 74 

 were without issue, after a period of five years. Of those who had not yet lived 

 in the married state for five years, 28 were still without family ; and in Burke's 

 ' Peerage,' for 1842, there still remained among these 28 marriages, 7 without 

 issue, making 81 as the total number of unproductive marriages among the 

 original 503 ; or the proportion of the unproductive to the productive marriages 

 among this number is, as nearly as possible, 1 in 6f . In the above calculation, 

 I have excluded 8 unproductive marriages, in which the age of the husband at 

 the date of marriage exceeded 56. These 8, however, ought to be deducted from 

 the original sum of total marriages that were included ; or, in other words, the 

 503 should be reduced to 495, and then the whole result would stand thus :— 

 among 495 marriages in the British Peerage, 81 were unproductive, or 1 in (j| 

 were without any family." The proportion of unproductive marriages in Grange- 

 mouth, Bathgate, and the British Peerage, all taken together, was found by 

 Simpson to be 1 in8-f-. 



Dr West* states, that he found the general average of sterile marriages, 

 among his patients at St Bartholomew's Hospital, to be 1 sterile marriage in 

 every 8*5.f 



Chapter III. — Absolute Sterility of Wives. 



In order to arrive at the absolute sterility of the wives in Edinburgh and 

 Glasgow, it is necessary to add to the number of wives bearing first living children, 

 the number of those who bear only dead children or abortions. 



* Diseases of Women, 3d edition, p. 3. 



f A statement of the sterility of Esquimaux women is given by Roberton, Essays and Notes 

 on the Physiology and Diseases of Women, p. 53. 





