Live in England and be a girl and belong to the class of people that miners come from: Your age at marriage will be, on the average, twenty-two. But belong to the class of people that professional men come from: Your age at marriage will be, on the average, twenty-six.
This difference exists also in the United States. It is in the direct line of social and economic development.
The professional man is a farther developed type of man than the miner. It takes him longer to get through his educational infancy—longer to arrive at his mental and financial maturity. The professional man's wife is a farther developed type than the miner's wife. She has much more economic value (if she works) before marriage and much LESS economic value (in any case) after marriage.
Where these two lines of development, male and female, come to a meeting point; where the man's infancy is longest and the woman's economic value as a wife is least, there is, necessarily, altogether apart from personal preferences, the greatest postponement of marriage.
The United States, except possibly in certain sections, has not come to the end of its growth toward postponed marriage.
It is true that in Massachusetts, within the past forty-five years, the average age of women at marriage has risen from 20.7 to 24.6. That is a very "modern" and "developed" marriage age. But many of the older countries surpass it. In Belgium, for instance, which is a most intensely industrialized country, the average age of women at marriage is 28.19.
It is hard, indeed, to look at the advancing marriage age and to compare its varying rate of progress in different continents, different countries, different localities, and different social circles without admitting that, whatever whirling, nebulous mists of personal preferences it may create and carry with it, its nucleus is purely economic.
Early marriage was made by economic advantages. It was destroyed by economic changes. It will not be restored except by economic adjustments.
"Nevertheless," said Mary, "I want John."
John had finished being engineer for the electric railway company.