Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 January 1877 — Marriage Statistics. [ARTICLE]

Marriage Statistics.

Ordinarily nine or ten pairs out of every thousand Philadelphians are mated in a year. But in 1875 the proportion fell off nearly a fifth, and was less than in any vear since 1861. The cause is no doubt to be found in the general depression of business; a cause that applied almost equally iu 1861, when there was a prospect of war. Comparing these and other years, it appears evident that people marry most when general business is most lively. For all who are becoming anxious on the subject of matrimony there is much vuluable information in these statistics as to the chances. The tendency to marriage is greater in Philadelphia than in England, but less than in Massachusetts. The great opportunity of marrying for either sex occurs between the ages of twenty and twenty-five; the chances are not seriously diminished for men in the ensuing five years, but for women as they approach thirty there is nowhere near half as much probability. The fact that if people mean to marry at all they should set about it in the earlier years of maturity is very plainly enforced by these figures. At about the age of twenty-five' unmarried women have lost two-thirds of their chances; at thirty, six-sevenths; at forty, twenty-nine-thirti-eths. When a bachelor has reached thirty years, he has lost seven-tenths of his opportunities; at forty, more than ninetantlis. Marriages in which there isgreat disparity of ages seem'to be comparatively rare in Philadelphia; the old gentlemen of that city do not take kindly to very young wives; in 1875 only one girl under twenty married a man of over fifty years, and only one woman under thirty married a man of over seventy. October is the favored month with people desiring wedlock, but they are almost equally well satisfied with any of the winter or fail months. On the other hand, March, whether in its quality of lamb or lion is considered a wretched month for bridals; and August and July are almost equally out of favor.— N. Y. Tribune.