In man, however, there is—nowadays at least—a considerable percentage of unmated individuals. The Census of 1910 shows that in the United States one-fourth of all the men between 25 and 44 years of age, and one-sixth of all the women, were unmarried. Many of the men, and a smaller number of the women, will still marry; yet at the end there will remain a large number, particularly in the more highly educated classes, who die celibate. If these unmated individuals differ in any important respect from the married part of the population, preferential mating will be evident.
INTELLIGENT GIRLS ARE MOST LIKELY TO MARRY
Fig. 33.—Graph showing the marriage-rate (on the same scale as in Fig. 32) of the graduates of a normal school, as correlated with their class standing. The girls who received the highest marks in their studies married in the largest numbers. It is evident that, on the whole, girls who make a poor showing in their studies in such schools as this are more likely to be life-long celibates than are the bright students.
At the extremes, there is no difficulty in seeing such mating. Certain men and women are so defective, physically, mentally, or morally, as to be unable to find mates. They may be idiots, or diseased, or lacking normal sexuality, or wrongly educated.
But to get any adequate statistical proof of preferential mating on a broad scale, has been found difficult. Two small but suggestive studies made by Miss Carrie F. Gilmore of the University of Pittsburgh are interesting, though far from conclusive. She examined the records of the class of 1902, Southwestern State Normal School of Pennsylvania, to find which of the girls had married. By means of photographs, and the opinions of disinterested judges, the facial appearance of all the girls in the class was graded on a scale of 100, and the curve in Fig. 32 plotted, which shows at a glance just what matrimonial advantage a woman's beauty gives her. In general, it may be said that the prettier the girl, the better her chance of marriage.
YEARS BETWEEN GRADUATION AND MARRIAGE