Bisbee daily review., 1909-01-02
FEW CHILDREN IN FRANCE DUE
 ID DIFFICULT MARRIAGE LAWS

Everyone who writes on FTau~N shows deep concern at the falnng birth rate and at the fact that the population is actually decreasing. In twenty-five years. We are told. Ger many will have double the populatlusi of France. and in fifty years the na- tion will have disappeared-unless fin the meantime it is gobbled up by the powerful and rapidly increasing ne gh- bor. France grows richer every year, since there is less and less to divide, while Germany must grow relatiNeis poorer. as natural expansion is check ed by her geographical boundaries and EaroPes firm adherence to the balance of power.
 MARRIAGE AT FAULT.
 Above all things, this people is log icaf Having become aware of the danger, it has set to work to find the cause One of those causes is the complexity of marriage in France. writes the Paris correspondent of the Pail Mall Gazette. Persons are de barred from entering wedlock, eH- Deeially persons of the poorer sort, becaase of it's difficulty. Until q year ago the law demanded formid- able array of papers before the youIrs man and woman could be joined to- gether in matrimony. The consent Of the parents had to be obtained in writing; there were birth certificai~s and certificates of residence. and in the case of the man evidence that he had completed his military service.
 If the parents were dead the affair was even more complicated. Palsers had to prove their death and the death of the grandparents. The total docu- ments required were nineteen. In country parishes such documents are fairly easy to procure, as the French Deasaatry has a way Of remaiutns rooler to the soil from generation to generation but in the towns il is much more difficult
 Papers had to be sent for from dis tant parts; there was delay and thei.; was expense. In the case of foreign CTS there was added formality Of translation, sometimes representing .,l. expenditure of hundred or more francs. This was a grave impedimeI. in the way of very poor persons. an almost impossible obstacle Soiise mayors Of conmunes recognized how impossible it was to comply with all the requirements of the law and cuh- nived al irregular attestations.
 Moved by this state of things, by the inpediments that the law offered to marriage, Abbe Lemire, one of the -few priest deputies in the chance, and a man of admirable enthusiasns, brought in bill a year ago to simpli- fy the formalities. After the age ol 20 the consent of the parents is no longer required. This seems a very meager concession to the modern spu 1t, but it has already worked marveis. The marriage rate is on the upturn, to the tune of 5000 more marriages Il, the latter half of 1907, the law being passed in June The good abbe al tempted still larger reform, but ,,as. not successful
 TAKES BELGIUM IDEAS.
 He wished. in Imitation of the a s- form in Belgium. to place marriage within the limits of the common law that is to say. to enable the person who had attained his majority to OUn. tract it without the intervention of his parents This. however. was too uaI- ing 8 proposition for sthe chamber. and it stayed short at modifying the formalities for all marriages and ao- solving the frances from their parents consent after the age of %.
 The upward movement in marriage is to be directly traceable to the new legislation, as DT. Jacqes BeTtiIlon. the municipal stadstician, points out; 1t is proved by thn immediate advance in the figures after 1t was promuI gated
 Dr. Bertillon pleads for the Belgian method on the ground that it encOur- ages early marriages, reduces the number of illegitimates and aids in the natality returns Here is an in- stance. despite the old Latin tag to the contrary, that morals are really Infected by laws. As consequence of the concession 1lere noted, the ma. riages for 1907 are more numerous than since the two years following the war Ca case of retarded marriagesD [. which have hitherto constituted the record. and more numerous propor- 1ionate to population than in 7Si3, when the young man rushed to marIl- rno3y to escape conscription. The marriage figures for the second half of 1907 stand at Y6e,8S0.