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persons, as well as the absence of the preventive check, I have found, on an examination of the registers, that the proportion of widows, compared with that of the spinsters, (the only distinction in relation to the present question which the registers of England recognize,) was between an eleventh and a twelfth, and, compared with the whole number of marriages, somewhat exceeding a twelfth. The examination only extended to one year, in which the proportion seemed so uniformly distributed as to render further research unnecessary; and the single result is so nearly coincident with that regarding the like class in the Paris registers', as to warrant us in assuming the latter to be fairly applicable, in their other details, to the large towns of both countries; still conceiving, however, that the country parts of each kingdom would give a comparatively smaller radix of second marriages, in which, nevertheless, the relative proportions of the sexes composing them would, in all probability, be pretty accurately preserved. I shall assume one seventh of the whole number of the annual marriages of the males as second and third ones, that is, contracted by widowers.

(8) I am bound, however, in candour to state, that a document, which I have completed, with considerable attention, for other purposes, seems to vary considerably from the above calculations, as referrible to England. Turning to a synoptical register of the British Peerage, I find that, in the two last-deceased generations of that body, nearer a fifth than a sixth

It may, at first sight, be objected that Paris may not be a marrying place, (this is, however, a mistake; there are about one in five more marriages there, than in all France, on the average,) but this does not affect the inquiry. It is not the marrying class, in proportion to the whole population, on which it turns,

but it is in the marrying class, exclusively considered, where these proportions are to be sought, and which are doubtless influenced by causes operating with great regularity every where, on individuals similarly disposed and circumstanced.

part of the marriages, as it respects the Peers, have been other than first ones. But I am, nevertheless, still disposed to believe that the proportion already mentioned, is, on every consideration, likely to be true, as it regards the great bulk of the people. Not merely are the Peers, emphatically speaking, a marrying class of society, (a very small proportion of them, who arrive at the age of maturity, ever remaining unmarried,) but this is strikingly the case as it regards the widowers amongst their number. And with this evident disposition, in case of the dissolution of their first connexions, as they are, most unquestionably, in a more advantageous situation for forming subsequent ones than any other class of the community, so I am persuaded that they will generally be found to avail themselves of that advantage. Indeed, actual observation, independent of these considerations, must convince any one that the marriage of widowers, amongst the Peerage, is nearly universal. The Peers of the United Kingdom marry considerably more than once each, on the average of their entire number, including those who never do marry. Few, however, I confess, after all, of the working classes, or, in other words, of the great majority of the community, remain long single.

(9) I had actually written thus far-my conviction of the truth of the last assertion strengthening, and my confidence in the preceding calculation, involving so great an apparent difference between the habits of the two classes in this respect, proportionably abatingwhen it occurred to me, on further consideration, that the discrepancy was resolvable, in great measure, into the different terms made use of in the two calculations; and that, after all, the variation, when duly estimated, would be slight in itself, and not exceeding that which would, on any account, be demanded by known facts.

And such, I think, turns out to be the case; and it affords another proof, were any wanting, of the advantage of honestly adhering to facts, and abiding the consequences; it is thus, that in any system founded upon correct principles, we are led to those just proportions and true relations which distinguish the features of truth. The difference, then, between the proportion of 1 in 5.35, in one case, and that of 1 in 7 in the other, (or, what is the same thing, 1 upon 4.35, and 1 upon 6,) nearly disappears when it is considered that the former, indicating the proportion of the second and third marriages of the Peers, is calculated on the sum of these second and subsequent marriages, compared with the first ones, as occurring amongst the same individuals, whose number is, therefore, fixed; whereas, the latter is the annual proportion of these after connexions, computed on the number of the first ones occurring amongst other individuals, whose number is, in the present instance, increasing. In the former case, the inquiry is individually pursued, which has precisely the same effect as though the numbers were stationary; in the latter, the calculation is on the mass; and as it is quite evident that first and second marriages, as it regards the same persons, are not contemporary events, it is equally so, that in attempting to deduce from the general annual results, which represent them as such individual computations, the same rectification is necessary on this occasion as in others already pointed out, where the population is in a state of progression, and when consequently the various results would, in proportion to its augmentation in the interval, be represented as too low. In the present instance, assuming fifteen years' as the average dura

It is somewhat singular that I had fixed upon this term as the best supposi

tion I could form, before it occurred to me to refer to the synopsis of the Peer

pre

tion of the period intervening between first and subsequent marriages, it is evident that the second and third marriages of any given year must, in fact, be entered into by those who, one with another, married, for the first time, fifteen years previously. Having, therefore, the number of these after marriages, if we wish to estimate the proportion they bear to the first ones, from which they actually result, it must be by comparing them with those which took place at the vious period, and not with those of the present one; with the latter of which they have, in strictness, no connexion whatever. Supposing, then, that in the average interval between these events, the population of the country has advanced twenty-five per centum, (which, according to the late census, it would have about done,) the following simple calculation will exemplify the fact I have been attempting to explain, and will reconcile the apparent dissonance between the events under consideration, in the two opposite classes of society, as far as seems consistent with the different circumstances in which each is placed. The first column commences with 1000 marriages, which, according to the proportion alluded to, as existing amongst the Peerage, add 230 second marriages to those taking place fifteen years afterwards, when the first ones, agreeably to the increase in the population, have augmented to 1250; now it is evident that, individually considered, as in the instance of our appeal to the Peerage, these 230 after-marriages are celebrated by the 1000 couples who married, for the first time, at the former period: the whole number of marriages contract

age, already mentioned, when I found in the 59 cases of second and third marriages, which I had entered as having occurred in the present generation of Peers, (which I preferred adverting to,

rather than preceding ones,) the sum of the several intervals was 929 years, the mean average duration being, therefore, 15.7.

ed by them being, therefore, 1230, and the proportion of their second and subsequent ones to the first, being as 1 to 5.35. But if these 230 subsequent weddings are added to the 1250 first ones, which are taking place at the same time, the amount of both is 1480, and the proportion of the second marriages, computed on the latter number, then sinks from 1 in 5.35 to 1 in 6.4. The latter mode, which seems to be the only one pursued at present, is evidently fallacious, except when applied to a stationary population. The following table is only extended to a few periods, and will suffice to remove the obscurity that may have attended the preceding explanations.

TABLE XXVIII.

EXEMPLIFYING THE METHOD OF DIRECTLY DETERMINING THE RELA TIVE PROPORTION OF FIRST AND SUBSEQUENT MARRIAGES IN AN INCREASING POPULATION.

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(10) The above Table is calculated upon the data which the register of the Peerage I have alluded to suggests; in which, as before observed, every 4.35 first marriages yield one after-marriage, or, what is the same thing, in every 5.35 marriages, 1 is a second one;

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