There are, however, even in savage life, circumstances which compel certain persons to live unmarried for a longer or shorter time. When a wife has to be bought, a man must of course have some fortune before he is able to marry. Thus, as regards the Zulus, Mr. Eyles writes to me that “young men who are without cattle have often to wait many years before getting married.”[840] When Major-General Campbell asked some of the Kandhs why they remained single, they replied that they did so because wives were too expensive.[841] Among the Munda Kols and Hos, in consequence of the high prices of brides, are to be found “what are probably not known to exist in other parts of India, respectable elderly maidens.”[842] In the New Britain Group, too, according to Mr. Romilly, the purchase sum is never fixed at too low a price, hence “it constantly happens that the intended husband is middle-aged before he can marry.”[843] Similar statements are made in a good many books of travels.[844]
Polygyny, in connection with slavery and the unequal distribution of property, acts in the same direction. In Makin, one of the Kingsmill Islands, a great number of young men were unmarried owing to the majority of the women being monopolized by the wealthy and powerful.[845] Among the Bakongo, according to Mr. Ingham, as also among the Australians,[846] polygyny causes celibacy among the poorer and younger men; and Dr. Sims says the like of the Bateke, Mr. Cousins of the Kafirs, Mr. Radfield of the inhabitants of Lifu. Among the Kutchin Indians, according to Hardisty, there are but few young men who have wives—unless they can content themselves with some old cast-off widow—on account of all the chiefs, medicine men, and those who possess rank acquired by property having two, three, or more wives.[847] For the same reason many men of the lower classes of the Waganda are obliged to remain single, in spite of the large surplus of women.[848] In Micronesia, also, it is common for the poorer class and the slaves to be doomed to perpetual celibacy.[849] Among the Thlinkets, a slave cannot acquire property, nor marry, except by consent of his master, which is rarely given;[850] and in the Soudan the case seems to be the same.[851]
But we must not exaggerate the importance of these obstacles to marriage. When the man is not able to buy a wife for himself, he may, in many cases, acquire her by working for some time with her parents, or by eloping with her. Moreover, as Sir John Lubbock remarks, the price of a wife is generally regulated by the circumstances of the tribe, so that nearly every industrious young man is enabled to get one.[852] Speaking of the Sumatrans, Marsden observes that the necessity of purchasing does not prove such an obstacle to matrimony as is supposed, for there are few families who are not in possession of some small substance, and the purchase-money of the daughters serves also to provide wives for the sons.[853] Again, polygyny is, as we shall see further on, almost everywhere restricted to a small minority of the people, and is very often connected with the fact that there is a surplus of women. Thus, among the polygynous Waguha, as I am informed by Mr. Swann, unmarried grown-up men do not exist, the women being more numerous than the men. At any rate, we may conclude that at earlier stages of civilization, when polygyny was practised less extensively and women were less precious chattels than they afterwards became, celibacy was a much rarer exception than it is now among many of the lower races.
Passing to the peoples of Europe, we find, from the evidence adduced by statisticians, that modern civilization has proved very unfavourable to the number of marriages. In civilized Europe, in 1875, more than a third of the male and female population beyond the age of fifteen lived in a state of voluntary or involuntary celibacy. Excluding Russia, the number of celibates varied from 25·57 per cent. in Hungary to 44·93 per cent. in Belgium. And among them there are many who never marry.[854] In the middle of this century, Wappäus found that, in Saxony, 14·6 per cent. of the unmarried adult population died single; in Sweden, 14·9 per cent.; in the Netherlands, 17·2 per cent.; and in France, 20·6 per cent.[855] Of the rest, many marry comparatively late in life. Thus, in Denmark, only 19·43 per cent. of the married men were under twenty-five, and in Bavaria (in 1870-1878), only 16.36, whilst the figures for England and Russia look more favourable, being respectively 51·90 per cent. (in 1872-1878), and 68·31 per cent. (in 1867-1875). Of the married women, on the other hand, only 5·09 per cent. are below the age of twenty in Sweden, 5·40 per cent. in Bavaria, 7·44 per cent. in Saxony, 14·86 per cent. in England, &c.; but in Hungary as many as 35·16 per cent., and in Russia even 57·27 per cent.[856] The mean age of the bachelors who enter into matrimony is 26 years in England and 28·48 in France, that of the spinsters respectively 24·07 and 25·3.[857]
As a rule, the proportion of unmarried people has been gradually increasing in Europe during this century,[858] and the age at which people marry has risen. In England we need not go further back than two decades, to find a greater tendency on the part of men to defer marriage to later age than was formerly the case.[859] Finally, it must be noted that in country districts single men and women are more seldom met with, and marriage is generally concluded earlier in life, than in towns.[860]
There are, indeed, several factors in modern civilization which account for the comparatively large number of celibates. In countries where polygyny is permitted, women have a better chance of getting married than men, but in Europe the case is reversed. Here, as in most parts of the world, the adult women outnumber the adult men. If we reckon the age for marriage from twenty to fifty years, a hundred men may, in Europe, choose amongst a hundred and three or four women, so that about three or four women per cent. are doomed to a single life on account of our obligatory monogamy.[861]
The chief cause, however, of increasing celibacy is the difficulty of supporting a family in modern society. The importance of this factor is distinctly proved by statistics. It has been observed that the frequency of marriages is a very sensible barometer of the hopes which the mass of people have for the future; hard times, wars, commercial crises, &c., regularly depressing the number of marriages, whilst comparative abundance has the opposite effect.[862]
In non-European countries into which a precocious civilization has not been introduced, the population is more nearly in proportion to the means of subsistence, and people adapt their mode of life more readily to their circumstances. In most cases a man can earn his living sooner;[863] and a wife far from being a burden to her husband, is rather a help to him, being his labourer or sometimes even his supporter. Moreover, children, instead of requiring an education that would absorb the father’s earnings, become, on the contrary, a source of income. Thus Mr. Bickmore asserts that, among the Malays, difficulty in supporting a family is unknown.[864] Carsten Niebuhr states that, in the East, men are as disposed to marry as women, “because their wives, instead of being expensive, are rather profitable to them.”[865] And, speaking of the American Indians, Heriot says that children form the wealth of savage tribes.[866]
To a certain extent, the like is true of the agricultural classes of Europe. A peasant’s wife helps her husband in the field, tends the cattle, and takes part in the fishing. She cooks and washes, sews, spins, and weaves. In a word, she does many useful things about which women of the well-off classes never think of troubling themselves. Hence in Russia, as we are informed by M. Pietro Semenow, the small agriculturists, who form an enormous proportion of the population, are in the habit of arranging for the marriage of their sons at as early an age as possible in order to secure an additional female labourer.[867]
Even in cities it is not among the poorest classes that celibacy is most frequent. A “gentleman,” before marrying, thinks it necessary to have an income of which a mere fraction would suffice for a married workman. He has to offer his wife a home in accordance with her social position and his own; and unless she brings him some fortune, she contributes but little to the support of the family. Professor Vallis has made out that, in the nobility and higher bourgeoisie of Sweden, only 32 per cent. of the male population and 26 per cent. of the female population are married, whilst the averages for the whole population amount to 34 and 32 per cent. respectively.[868] Some such disproportion must always exist when the habits of life are luxurious, and the amount of income does not correspond to them. And it is obvious that women have to suffer from this trouble more than men, the life of many of them being comparatively so useless, and their pretensions, nevertheless, so high.