Those 418 Yale husbands lost 147 wives before full middle age.
It ceases, therefore, to be surprising, though it 9 remains unabatedly sickening, that the stories of the careers of colonial college men, of the best-bred men of the times, are filled with such details as:
“——First wife died at twenty-four, leaving six children.”
“——Eight children born within twelve years, two of them feeble-minded.”
“——First wife died at nineteen, leaving three children.”
“——Fourteen children. First wife died at twenty-eight, having borne eight children in ten years.”
From that age of universal early marrying and of promiscuous early dying we have come in two centuries to an age of delayed (and even omitted) marrying and of a settled determination to keep on living.
The women’s colleges are so new and they attracted in their early days so un-average a sort of girl that their records are not conclusive. Nevertheless, here are some guiding facts from Smith College, of Northampton, Massachusetts:
(We are taking college facts not because this chapter is confined in any respect to college people, 10 but merely because the matrimonial histories in the records of the colleges are the most complete we know of.)
In 1888, Smith College, in its first ten classes, had graduated 370 women.
In 1903, fifteen years later, among those 370 women there were 212 who were still single.
This record does not satisfy Mr. G. Stanley Hall, who figured it out. The remaining facts, however, might be considered more cheering:
The 158 Smith women who had married had borne 315 children. This was two for each of them. And most of them were still in their childbearing period. Compare this with the colonial records. But don’t take the number of children per colonial father. Be fair. Take it per mother.