MARRIAGE, 
also for criminal conversation with the wife 
of any one. 
If a man ill-use and turn his wife away, 
she has credit for necessaries wherever she 
goes, and he is Obliged to pay her debts ; 
but it is otherwise if she elopes or commits 
adultery. A married woman cannot be 
sued for her own debts, although she has a 
separate maintenance. 
Divorces are of two kinds, absolute, and 
from bed and board. The former can only 
be by act of Parliament, unless it is for 
some original defect in the marriage ; the 
latter is allowed on account of ill-treatment, 
&c., and then the wife has alimony or main- 
tenance allowed her. 
Marriage, in political economy. The 
reader may find many curious calcula- 
tions and remarks relating to this subject in 
Dr. Price’s “ Observations on Reversionary 
Payments.” From a variety of facts it ap- 
pears, that marriages, one with another, do 
each produce about four births, both in 
England and other parts of Europe. Dr. 
Price observes, that the births at Paris are 
above four times the weddings ; and there- 
fore it may seem, that in the most healthy 
country situations, every wedding produces 
above four children ; and though this be the 
case in Paris, for reasons which he has 
given, he has observed nothing like it in any 
other great town. He adds, that from com- 
paring the births and weddings in countries 
and towms where registers of them have 
been kept, it appears, that in the former, 
marriages one with another seldom produce 
less than four children each; generally be- 
tween four and five, and sometimes above 
five'; but in towns seldom above four, ge- 
nerally between three and four, and some- 
times under three. It is necessary to be 
observed here, that though the proportion 
of annua! births to w eddings has been con- 
sidered as giving the true number of chil- 
dren derived from each marriage, taking all 
marriages one with another: yet this is only 
true, when, for many years, the births and 
burials have kept nearly equal. Where 
there is an excess of the births, occasioning 
an increase, the proportion of annual births 
to weddings must be less than the propor- 
tion of children derived from each mar- 
riage ; and the contrary must take place 
where there is a decrease: and by Mr. 
King’s computation, about one in a hun- 
dred and four persons marry ; the number 
of people in England being estimated at 
five millions and a half, whereof about forty- 
one tliousand annually marry. In the dis- 
trict of Vaud in Switzerland, the married 
are very nearly a third part of the inhabi- 
tants. hlajor Graunt and Miv King disa- 
gree in the proportions between males and 
females, the latter making ten males to 
thirteen females ip London ; in other cities 
and towns, and in the villages and hamlets, 
one hundred males to ninety-nine females ; 
but Major Graunt, both from the London 
and countiy bills, computes that there are 
in England fourteen males to thirteen fe- 
males ; whence he justly infers, that the 
Christian religion, prohibiting polygamy, is 
more agreeable to the law of nature than 
Mahometanism, and others that allow it. 
This proportion of males to females Mr. 
Deriiam thinks pretty just, being agreeable 
to what he had observed himself. In the 
hundred years, for instance, of his own pa- 
rish register of Upminster, though the bu- 
rials of males and females were nearly 
equal, being 633 males, and 623 females in 
all that time ; yet there were baptized 709 
males, and but 675 females, which is 13 
females to 13.7 males. From a register 
kept at Northampton for 28 years, from 
1741 to 1770, it appears that the propor- 
tion of males to females, that were born in 
that period, is 2,361 to 2,288, or nearly 13.4 
to 13. 
However, though more males are born 
than females, Dr. Price has sufficiently 
shown, that there is a considerable differ- 
ence between the probabilities of life 
among males and females in favour of the 
latter ; so that males are more short-lived 
than females ; and as the greater mortality 
of males takes place among children, as 
well as among males at all ages, the fact 
cannot be accounted for merely by their 
being more subject to untimely deaths by 
various accidents, and by their being ad- 
dicted to the excesses and irregularities 
which shorten life. M. Kerseboom in- 
forms us, that during the course of 125 
years in Holland, females have in all acci- 
dents of age, lived about three or four 
years longer than the same number of 
males. In several towns of Germany, See. 
it appears, that of 7,270 married persons 
who had died, the proportion of married 
men who died, to the, married women, w'as 
three to two ; and in Rreslaw^ for eight 
years, as five to three. In all Pomerania, 
during nine years, from 1748 to 1756, this 
proportion was nearly 1.5 to 11. Among 
the ministers and professors in Scotland, 20 
married men' die to 12 married women, at 
a medium of 27 years, or in the proportion 
