Virginia citizen. (Irvington, Va.) 1891-1921, 1907-12-06
HUSBAND INSURANCE.
Unmarried Women to be Guaran.
teed Husbands or Paid Annuity.

teed Husbands or Paid Annuity.
One woman out of every three women
in the United States fails to get hus-
band. In Massachusetts nearly half the
women lack husbands; in some of the
Western States marriageable women
are married as fast as they arrive.
These are some of the facts discovered
by agents of big American life insur-
ance company, who have been digging
over the statistics of the United States
Census Bureau in Washington with a
view to issuing insurance policies to in
sure women against becoming old maids.
1t is believed that a husband insurance
policy can be devised for reasonable
premium which will be as attractive to
young unmarried women as life in
surance policy is to young men with
families.
OF course the policy will not under
take to provide husband any more
than life insurance pretends to keep the
policy holder alive. But the comforts
of money will ease the disappointment
of the spinster in her old age just as il
does the widow whose husband was
insured.
Study of the census and other infor-
nation on the subject collected by the
company reveal among other remark
able things that woman's chances OF
marriage are largely question of geog-
raphy. A railroad ticket is the only
thing that stands between the average
girl on the Atlantic Coast and matri-
mony. The Insurance policies insurins
woman against being an old maid will
be classed as preferred risks" "haz.
ardous," etc., according to where she
lives and taking into consideration her
health, age and attractiveness. Every
woman applying for husband insurance
will be examined by inspectors, who
will make rating as to her complexion,
hair, eyes, teeth, plumpness, prospec-
tive probabilities of motherhood, ami
ability and even the attractiveness of
her smile. Apretty girl in good health,
with good nature and reputation, would
have little difficulty in getting a policy
IN her youth, nor would her premium
be high even if she lived in Massachu-
sets, where the chances are almost
even against the average girl finding a
mate. A less healthy and attractive
girl in the same state would have to
pay more, according to the degree of
difference in these matters, until finally
the case would be reached which the
company would refuse to take at any
premium. They might exclude a girl
because her health is so bad as to make
marriage unlikely or because she is
cross-eyed or cross-tempered, or because
they don't approve of her habits. Tenn
permanent and habits would be secretly
learned just as the companies now find
out whether person dissipates or not
and rate him accordingly.
Across-eyed, cross-tempered, anaemic
young lady who would be refused in
Boston might obtain policy by moving
permanently to Wyoming or Idaho,
where practically all girls that are not
insane, crippled or hopeless invalids,
become married.
The age at which a maiden's chances
of marriage are dead and therefore the
amount of the policy becomes payable
will be placed at about forty years in
general. Bypaying a higher premium
it may be made earlier. Perhaps the
company will pay in increasing install
ments until her fiftieth year, or hold it
in trust for her, paying only interest
until that time. If she should marry
before fifty she would forfeit whatever
was still unpaid.
Averaging all the States and Terri
tories only two women out of three are
married. Certain regions average high
in spinsters, and are therefore risky
from the standpoint of matrimon;a
insurance.
1t may be said that Massachusett.
and Virginia are most unfavorable fol
expectation of husbands, the married
women in each of these two State:
numbering only 584 out of every LOO,
female persons of manageable age
(This will not hold good as to whit,
females in Virginia and the South; tn,
computations there include the negroes
who are not marrying race.) Rhod
Island comes next in point of undesir
ableness from the spinster's viewpoint
only 500 in every 1000 women bein,
provided with husbands. Arkansas il
this respect is fourth from the bottor