INFLUENCE OF MARRIAGE ON THE DEATH-RATE.

The Royal Commission on the Law of Marriage has attracted attention to many singular and instructive results of modern statistical inquiry. Not the least important of these is the apparent influence of marriage on the death-rate. For several years it has been noticed by statisticians that the death-rate of unmarried men is considerably higher than the death-rate of married men and widowers. I believe that Dr. Stark, Registrar-General for Scotland, was one of the first to call attention to this peculiarity, as evidenced by the results of two years’ returns for Scotland. But the law has since been confirmed by a far wider range of statistical inquiry. The relative proportion between the death-rates of the married and of the unmarried is not absolutely uniform in different countries, but it is239 fairly enough represented by the following table, which exhibits the mortality per thousand of married and unmarried men in Scotland:—
Ages.    Husbands and Widowers.    Unmarried.
20 to 25       6·26      12·31
25 to 80       8·23      14·94
30 to 35       8·65      15·94
35 to 40      11·67      16·02
40 to 45      14·07      18·35
45 to 50      17·04      21·18
50 to 55      19·54      26·34
55 to 60      26·14      28·54
60 to 65      35·63      44·54
65 to 70      52·93      60·21
70 to 75      81·56    102·71
75 to 80    117·85    143·94
80 to 85    173·88    195·40

From this table we are to understand that out of one hundred thousand married persons (including widowers) from 20 to 25 years old, 626 die in the course of each year; while out of a similar number of unmarried persons, between the same ages, no less than 1,231 die in each year. And in like manner all the other lines of the table are to be interpreted.

Commenting on the evidence supplied by the above figures, Dr. Stark stated that ‘bachelorhood is more destructive to life than the most unwholesome trades, or than residence in an unwholesome house or district, where there has never been the most distant attempt at sanitary improvement of any kind.’ And this view has been very generally accepted, not only by the public, but by professed statisticians. Yet, as a matter of fact, I believe that no such inferences can legitimately be240 drawn from the above table. Dr. Stark appears to me to have fallen into the mistake, which M. Quetelet tells us is so common, of trying to make his statistics carry more weight than they are capable of bearing. It is important that the matter should be put in a just light, for the Royal Commission on the Law of Marriage has revealed no more striking fact than that of the prevalence of immature marriages, and such reasoning as Dr. Stark’s certainly cannot tend to discourage these unwise alliances. If death strikes down in five years only half as many of those who are married as of those who are unmarried between the ages of 20 and 25 (as appears from the above table), and if the proportion of deaths between the two classes goes on continually diminishing in each successive lustre (as is also shown by the above table), it seems reasonable to infer that the death-rate would be even more strikingly disproportionate for persons between the ages of fifteen and twenty than for persons between the ages of twenty and twenty-five. I believe, indeed, that if Dr. Stark had extended his table to include the former ages, the result would have been such as I have indicated. Yet few will suppose that very youthful marriages can exercise so singularly beneficial an effect.

To many Dr. Stark’s conclusion may appear to be a natural and obvious sequitur from the evidence upon which it is founded. Admitting the facts—and I see no reason for doubting them—it may appear at first sight that we are bound to accept the conclusion that241 matrimony is favourable to longevity. Yet the consideration of a few parallel cases will suffice to show how small a foundation the figures I have quoted supply for such a conclusion. What would be thought, for example, of any of the following inferences?—Among hot-house plants there is observed a greater variety and brilliance of colour than among those which are kept in the open air; therefore the housing of plants conduces to the splendour of their colouring. Or again: The average height of Life Guardsmen is greater than that of the rest of the male population; therefore to be a Life Guardsman conduces to tallness of stature. Or to take an example still more closely illustrative of Dr. Stark’s reasoning: The average longevity of noblemen exceeds that of untitled persons; therefore to have a title is conducive to longevity; or borrowing his words, to remain without a title ‘is more destructive to life than the most unwholesome trades, or than residence in an unwholesome house or district, where there has never been the most distant attempt at sanitary improvement of any kind.’

We know that the inference is absurd in each of the above instances, and we are able at once to show where the flaw in the reasoning lies. We know that splendid flowers are more commonly selected for housing, and that Life Guardsmen are chosen for their tallness, so that we are prevented from falling into the mistake of ascribing splendour of colour in the one instance, or tallness in the other, to the influence of causes which have nothing whatever to do with those attributes;242 nor is anyone likely to ascribe the longevity of our nobility to the possession of a title. Yet there is nothing in any one of the above inferences which is in reality more unsound than Dr. Stark’s inference from the mortality bills, when the latter are considered with due reference to the principles of interpretation which statisticians are bound to follow.

The fact is, that in dealing with statistics the utmost care is required in order that our inferences may not be pushed beyond the evidence afforded by our facts. In the present instance, we have simply to deal with the fact that the death-rate of unmarried men is higher than the death-rate of married men and widowers. From this fact we cannot reason as Dr. Stark has done to a simple conclusion. All that we can do is to show that one of three conclusions must be adopted:—Either matrimony is favourable (directly or indirectly) to longevity, in a degree sufficient wholly to account for the observed peculiarity; or a principle of selection—the effect of which is such as, on the whole, to fill the ranks of married men from among the healthier and stronger portion of the community—operates in a sufficient degree to account wholly for the observed death-rates; or lastly, the observed death-rates are due to the combination, in some unknown proportion, of the two causes just mentioned.

No reasonable doubt can exist, as it seems to me, that the third is the true conclusion to be drawn from the evidence supplied by the mortality bills. Unfortunately, the conclusion thus deduced is almost valueless,243 because we are left wholly in doubt as to the proportion which subsists between the effects to be ascribed to the two causes thus shown to be in operation.

It scarcely required the evidence of statistics to prove that each cause must operate to some extent.

It is perfectly obvious, on the one hand, that although hundreds of men who would be held by insurance companies to be ‘bad lives’ may contract marriage, yet on the whole a principle of selection is in operation which must tend to bring the healthier portion of the male community into the ranks of the married, and to leave the unhealthier in the state of bachelorhood. A little consideration will show also that, on the whole, the members of the less healthy trades, very poor persons, habitual drunkards, and others whose prospects of long life are unfavourable, must (on the average of a large number) be more likely to remain unmarried than those more favourably situated. Another fact drawn from the Registrar-General’s return suffices to prove the influence of poverty on the marriage-rate. I refer to the fact that marriages are invariably more numerous in seasons of prosperity than at other times. Improvident marriages are undoubtedly numerous, but prosperity and adversity have their influence, and that influence not unimportant, on the marriage returns.

On the other hand, it is perfectly obvious that the life of a married man is likely to be more favourable to longevity than that of a bachelor. The mere fact that a man has a wife and family depending upon244 him will suffice to render him more careful of his health, less ready to undertake dangerous employments, and so on; and there are other reasons which will occur to everyone for considering the life of a married man better (in the sense of the insurance companies) than that of a bachelor. In fact, while we are compelled to reject Dr. Stark’s statement that ‘bachelorhood is more destructive to life than the most unwholesome trades, or than residence in an unwholesome house or district, where there has never been the most distant attempt at sanitary improvement of any kind,’ we may safely accept his opinion that statistics ‘prove the truth of one of the first natural laws revealed to man—“It is not good that man should live alone.”’

(From the Daily News, October 17, 1868.)