The Sun.
London, England, 1868-05-08 00:00:00

211ARRIAGE.

The decrease in marriage now so noticeable among
the most highly civilized peoples of Christendom
has for some time excited general attention. Many
writers have undertaken to explain the phenome-
non, but they scarcely satisfy themselves, and cer-
tainly not their readers. What one advances
another contradicts, and the causes given are so
numerous, and in many instances contain so much
of truth, that people become confused, and are com-
pelled to acknowledge that though the fact is cer-
tain, the writer has yet to appear who takes the
comprehensive view which carries conviction, and
hits the true nail on the head. The ages at which
10,000 bachelors marry are given as under for Eng-
land and France, 'and for Massachusetts by the
Springfield Republican:—.
.
England. Massachisetts. France
Tinder 20 years 277 225 270
20 to 25 Eata 4785 3075
25 to 30 2833 3425 3 96
80 to 35 968 1030 - 1821
35 to 40. 358 321 721
40 to 50 212 144 392 1
over 50 45 70 126
The average, ages are given for the three countries at
which all men marry, viz., 2E5.94 in England, 28.41
in. France, and 29.5- in Massachusetts, which leads
to the supposition that there is some error in the com-
pilation, but it 'maybe accounted for by the table for
Massachnsetts being derived from the census for the
ten years 1856-65. For the year 1865 the number
in Massachusetts out of the ten thousand who mar-
ried between 20 and 30 only reached 7,955, while
the number under 20 was but 192. This shows a
considerable decrease from the average of the ten
years, wherein the number is stated between the
ages of 20 and 30 in Massachusetts to be 8,210 out
of Um) tee thousand, 04114 225 w 149 married under .
.._

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tsni
the age of twenty. These figures show how ra-
pidly marriage in Massachusetts has decreased. The
portion of bachelors who marry in England out of
the ten thousand between 20 and 30, is 8,140, and
in France only 6,671. The death rate in England
and in France is, according to Dr. Farr, almost the
same, but the annual increase by births over deaths
timesiii England
than in
is
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I?ound Table says :--" A crusade for the sal-
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e S entirely
year, and it is matter of common remark that
marriages are getting to be rarer every year. The
prospect is such as no thoughtful man can deem
otherwise than alarming, and the problem must tax
all the ingenuity of the social philosopher to provide
a remedy. It is hardly possible to force men to
marry against their will, and it is difficult to per-
suade them. Women would doubtless be found
more amenable to reason ; but leap year, unluckily,
is honoured more in theory than in practice. And
it is after all to the propagation of marriage that we
must address ourselves ; the darker evil which we
have hinted at above, and against which not even
marriage is any safeguard, is from its very nature
almost beyond the reach of any influence but the
slow and gradual progress of enlightenment and the
force of medical and religious teaching. Besides,
it is useless to attempt to reform an institution
which seems to be in danger of dying out altogether
unless the hidden causes which are preying at its
roots be discovered and removed." It is the fashion
on women ; to point to their extravagance, to their
to throw•thuch blarne of thiS-State of things
crusade for equal- rights, to the growing taste for
refinement, and aversion from the toil and drudgery
of rearing a family and keeping up a home.
.NOthing can be more unjust and even absurd than
these reasons. The mass of women take no interest
whatever in the Woman's Rights movement. They
are extravagant because fashion makes them so,
and men make the fashions. What men admire is
what women strive to be, and if they profess to be
charmed by " fast" girls, girls will be fast. Marriage
is decreasing, not because women will not marry, but
because men will not, and men will not marry be-
cause they think they can procure more happiness
in the single state. Steam, by quickening travel,
has opened to all sections of a highly civilized state
the pleasures of a capital, which, as a general rule,
men would be compelled to forego if they encum-
bered themselves with a wife and family. Such
reasons are merely the weeds sprouting on the sur-
face, but so also is the fact. The decrease is a mere
temporary freak of fashion, which, in the end, will
correct itself. There are ebbs and flows in the
affairs of mankind which we may moralize over as
we see the tide running, but the flow continues re-
gardless of all our wise and profound conjectures till
the limit is reached when the current Stops, and pre-
sently flows back in the same volume, when the
philosophers on the bank begin moralizing as pro-
foundly ou the new phase, predicting either the
over population or the depopulation of the globe.
It is not long since, that sages raised their warning
voice against the improvidence of young people
rushing into matrimony, and a well-known writer
discussed the means of existence furnished by the
globe being overtaken by the superabundant popu

The philosopher of the day considers that he can
improve upon the relation which binds the sexes.
It has not uofrequently been the case that a sacred
law his been disputed, and an amendment proposed
by wise legislators. It has invariably, however,
been found, whatever the force of the theory, that
the proposal, in praetk., was a disgraceful failure.
To maintain the solemn and sacred nature of the
ceremony is a matter of greater and more imme-
diate interest to women than to men. Whatever
leads to immorality—that is, the infringement of
the Commandments—leads to the degradation of
the human race, and all eventually will suffer alike;
but the effects are first felt by women. Nature has
pointed out too clearly to be gainsayed that woman's
sphere is the house, that the main support of the
family in that house must come from the work of
the man, and that all laws, human and divine, must be
directed to support this proposition. Those who
assert a contempt for marriage, for priests, and
their useless and binding ceremony, strike at the
very foundations of society. They merely advance
a theory which suits their appetite, and would
doubtless be convenient foi young men with unre-
strained passion, while ruinous to young women.
It would be found, however, in the long
run that even the men would reap a dis-
agreeable harvest. It is said that clubs work
strongly against marriage ; that is, that men there
find so agreeable a home, so comfortable and well-
found an establishment, such a cheap and sumptuous
mode of living, that they prefer to enjoy its advantages
to the coarser fare with a wife. But what is the
experience of the club habitues—of the poor men
who have there attempted to suck up all the honey
of life? Doubtless it is agreeable so long as youth
and health last and pleasure does not pall. Yet we
believe that in any great club there will be as little
happiness found among the regular old bachelor
frequenters as among any community. Were ale
career of a young man who married imprudently,
and bad to struggle thereafter for the means of ex-
istence for himself and his family, compared
with that of the old bachelor club habitue, who
was no more successful in life, the balance would
rather incline in favour of the married man. If a
London club is remarkable for anything, it is re-
markable for the number of querulous, objectless,
ennuyed old gentlemen it produces; and there are
few young men who enter it who would not scout the
idea of eventually joining their ranks. Yet it is to
this, and to this only, such theories lead. At a
meeting a fortnight ago at the Stamford Chapel.
Blackfriars, to discuss the subject of Female Suff-
rage, the president, Professor Fawcett, M.P.,
said :—" When men and women were put on
fair terms of equality the women held their
own. Some time since certain reformers at Cam-
bridge succeeded in having the middle-class exami-
nations thrown open to girls. What was the result?
Why the very men who had opposed the change
now acknowledged that the girls who came up fur
examination were at least equal to the boys, and if
any thing their superiors:" Mr. Moncure D. Conway
gave an interesting account of a college at Antioch,
United States, where young men and women were
educated together. " Both sexes made great pro-
ficiency in their studies, and he had the authority
of the Hon. Horace Mann, and of the piucipal of
Harvard, for stating that the morality, courtesy,
and refinement exhibited in that college were un-
equalled by any of the old universities to which
only the male sex were admitted. He knew the
college well, and he could state that there was an
almost entire. absence of that monastic rudeness,
bigotry, and vice generally to be found in colleges.
In no part of the world did women enjoy so high a
position as in the United States. In the States of
New York and Massachusetts the teaching was
ahnost entirely done by them, and very recently
four women had been appointed the principal
commissioners of education in the latter State."
We sympathize with the movement so far as it tends
to open to women every walk of life for which they
are qualified. Women ought to have as free a
chance as men ; but we cannot sympathize with it
where it tends to militate against woman's depend-
ence which must form the groundwork of the con-
nection between the sexes. If men cease to marry,
to rear, and to support families, there is nothing we
would like better to see than an invasion of every
profession and a strong competition by women. In
fact this must be the consequence; for it would be
grossly absurd to say that man is to abandon his
duty and still retain to himself all the loaves and
fishes. Where a man is successful in life we hold it
to be his first duty to take unto himself a wife and
to share with her that success. But if he declines,
the sooner women invade his preserves, and if they
have-the ability assert their own right to the posi-
tion, the better. The one movement is the natural
sequence of the other, and if a majority of the girls
are compelled to remain-angle, circumstance must .