To these lists of unwilling celibates must be added, especially, the virile population in the army, the mortality in which was, as we well know, double that of the civil population. Now, on the 1st January 1852, the French army counted 354,960 men.[1115] To these matrimonial non-values, contributing a larger tithe to sickness and death, must be further joined the celibates from religious vows. The census shows 52,885 of the latter. Without any ill-feeling towards the Catholic clergy, we may be allowed to hold the opinion that the very fact of a man’s vowing himself to celibacy—that is to say, of setting at nought the desires of nature and the needs of the society of which he forms a part—merely for metaphysical motives, often implies a certain degree of mental inferiority. The special statistics of the little ecclesiastical world are not published in France; but M. Duruy having once had the happy thought of ascertaining from the judicial pigeon-holes the number of crimes and misdemeanours committed by the members of religious orders engaged in teaching, compared with those of lay schoolmasters, during a period of thirty months, the result of the inquiry showed that, proportionally to the number of schools, the former were guilty of four times as many misdemeanours and twelve times as many crimes as the latter.[1116] Short as the period of observation was, this enormous difference gives matter for reflection, although it may not have the value of a law.
But the principal causes which influence matrimony are the greater or less facility of existence, and the extreme importance attached to money. As a general rule, life and death tend to balance each other, and the populations whose mortality is great have, as compensation, a rich birthrate. We invariably see the number of marriages and births increasing after a series of prosperous years, and vice versâ. General causes have naturally a greater influence on the population living from hand to mouth. The well-to-do classes escape this, and we even find that the chances of marriage for the rich increase during years of high prices.[1117]
We can scarcely attribute to anything else but an excessive care for money and a forethought pushed to timidity some very disquieting traits in our marriage and birth rates in France. I will merely recall, by the way, the continually decreasing excess of our births, which, if not stopped by radical social reforms, can only end in our final decay.
The fear of marriage and the family is the particular feature of French matrimoniality. The desirable age for marriage, says A. Bertillon,[1118] is from twenty-two to twenty-five for men, and from nineteen to twenty for women. In England more than half the marriages for men (504 in 1000) and nearly two-thirds of those of women are contracted before the age of twenty-five. Now, this is only the case in France for 0.29, and in Belgium for 0.20 of the marriages. A demographical phenomenon of the same kind is observed in Italy, where only 232 men out of 1000 marry before the age of twenty-five.[1119] At Paris, where the struggle for existence is more severe, and where the care for money is more predominant, late marriages abound, and it is only above the age of forty for men and thirty-five for women that the marriage rate equals, and even exceeds, that of the whole of France;[1120] it is self-evident that the result of this must be a decrease in the total of births by marriage. Whether these facts proceed from the growing difficulties of existence, or from a fear, always augmenting also, of trouble and care, or from these two causes combined and mutually strengthening each other, the consequence is the same: marriages are becoming more and more simple commercial transactions, from whence arises the worst and most shameful of selections—selection by money. As a moral demographer, A. Bertillon thunders against what he calls “the system of dower” more peculiar to the Latin races, since we get it from Rome, where recourse was doubtless had to it in order to emancipate patrician women from strict conjugal servitude. But the remedy has become an evil, and it is surely to the love of the dowry rather than to “the beautiful eyes of the casket” that must be attributed a whole list of true marriages by purchase, much more common in our own country than elsewhere. Sometimes it is old men who conjugally purchase young girls, and sometimes old women who buy young husbands. I will especially notice this last category of marriages by purchase. As regards them, France is unworthily distinguished beyond other nations. In our tables of statistics, for example, the proportionate number of marriages between bachelors from eighteen to forty years and women of fifty and upwards, is ten times greater than in England.[1121]
Marriages with Women of Fifty Years and upwards. (In a million marriages.)
| IN FRANCE. | IN ENGLAND. | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Age of Bachelors. | Number of Marriages. | Age of Bachelors. | Number of Marriages. |
| 18 to 20 years | 64 | 16 to 20 years | 0 |
| 20 ” 25 ” | 109 | 20 ” 25 ” | 5 |
| 25 ” 30 ” | 151 | 25 ” 30 ” | 12 |
| 30 ” 35 ” | 188 | 30 ” 35 ” | 22 |
| 35 ” 40 ” | 257 | 35 ” 40 ” | 40 |
| 769 | 79 | ||
We must remark, in comparing these tables, that the first group, including the married men from eighteen to twenty years with women of fifty and upwards, is unknown in England; and that the second group, that of the married men of twenty to twenty-five years with women of fifty years and upwards, is scarcely represented. The comparison is not flattering for us. It is important to note, also, that these figures only refer to first marriages. Tables of the same kind, showing the marriages between young girls and old men, or between aged widows and young men, would add to our confusion, and bring to our thoughts the picturesque exclamation which Shakespeare puts into the mouth of King Lear—“Fie! Fie! Fie! Pah! Pah! Give me an ounce of civet, good apothecary, to sweeten my imagination.”[1122]
Marriages with Men of Sixty Years and upwards.
| IN FRANCE. | IN ENGLAND. | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Age of Girls. | Number of Marriages. | Age of Girls. | Number of Marriages. |
| 15 to 20 years | 94 | 15 to 20 years | 2 |
| 20 ” 25 ” | 139 | 20 ” 25 ” | 15 |
| 25 ” 30 ” | 176 | 25 ” 30 ” | 32 |
| 30 ” 35 ” | 242 | 30 ” 35 ” | 49 |
| 651 | 98 | ||