The Marriage Age for Girls : Part 1

Woman and Womanhood: A Search for Principles
by C. W. Saleeby, M.D.

(Page 14 of 26)

Let us clearly understand, in the first place, that in this chapter we discuss principles and averages, and that, supposing our conclusions be accepted as true, they cannot for a moment be quoted as decisive in their bearing upon special cases. The impartial reader will not suppose that such folly is contemplated, but those who discuss and advocate new views very soon learn that many readers are not impartial, and that for one cause or another they do not fail of misrepresentation. This is not a case, then, of "science laying down the law," and ordering this individual to marry at this age, and that not to marry at another; and yet though this rigorous individual application of our principles is absurd, they are none the less worth formulating, if it be possible.

The question before us is very far from simple: it is not in the nature of human problems to be simple, the individual and society being so immeasurably complex. We have to consider far more points than occur on first inspection. We have to ascertain when the average woman becomes fit for marriage. But we must remember that we are dealing with marriage under the conditions imposed by law and public opinion. Therefore, fit for mating and fit for marriage are not synonymous, and to ascertain the age of physiological fitness for mating, though an important contribution to our problem, is not the solution of it. We have further to consider how the taste and inclination of the individual vary in the course of her development. We have to ask ourselves at what age in general she is likely to make that choice which her maturity and middle age will ratify rather than for ever regret. We have to consider the relations of different ages to motherhood, both as regards the quality of the children born, and as regards their probable number under natural conditions. These are questions which certainly affect the individual's happiness profoundly, and yet that is the least of their significance.

Again, we have to observe how the constitution of society varies as regards the age of its members, according as marriage be early or late. In the former case more generations are alive at the same time, and in the latter case fewer. The increasing age at marriage would have more conspicuous results in this respect if it were not for the great increase in longevity; so that, though the generations are becoming more spread out, we may have as many representatives of different generations alive at the same time as there used to be; but of course there is the great difference that society is older as a whole. This is a fact which in itself must affect the doings and the prospects of civilization. An assemblage of people in the twenties will not behave in the same way as those in the forties. The probable effect must be towards conservatism, and increasing rigidity. It is a question to be asked by the historian of civilization how far these considerations bear upon the history of past empires.

Another and most notable result of the modified relation between the generations which ensues from increasing the age at marriage, is that the parents, under the newer conditions, must necessarily be, on the average, psychologically further from their children. The man who first becomes a father at twenty-five, should we say, may well expect still to have something of the boy in him at thirty, especially as children keep us young. He i. Therefore a companion for his child and his child for him. The same is true of women. It is good that a woman who still has something of girlhood in her should become a mother. When the marriage age is much delayed, people of both genders tend to grow old more quickly than if they had children to keep them young, and then when the children come the psychological disparity is greater than it ought to be - greater than is best either for parents or children.

Before we consider the question of individual development, let us note the general trend of the marriage age. There is no doubt that this is progressively towards a delay in marriage. We have only to study the facts amongst primitive races, and in low forms of civilization, to see that increase in civilization involves, amongst other things, increasing age at marriage. In his book, "The Nature of Man," Professor Metchnikoff quotes some statistics, now very nearly fifty years old, showing the age at first marriage in various European countries. The figure for England was nearly 26 for males and 24.6 for females; in France, Norway, Holland, and Belgium the figures for both genders were considerably higher, the average age in Belgium being very nearly 30 for men and more than 28 for women. In England the age has been rising for many years past, and probably stands now at about 28 for men and 26 for women. It need hardly be pointed out that this increase in the age of marriage is one of the factors in the fall of the birth-rate, which is general throughout the leading countries of the world, proceeding now with great rapidity even in Germany.

On the whole, it is further true that the marriage age rises as we ascend from lower to higher classes within a given civilization, though a very select class among the wealthy offer an exception to this.

Now nothing is more familiar to us all than that there is a disharmony, as Professor Metchnikoff puts it, between these ages for marriage and the age at which the development of the racial instinct is unmistakable and parenthood is indeed possible. The tendency of civilization is to increase this disharmony, and it is impossible to believe that this tendency can be healthy either for the civilization or for the individual.

Still concerning ourselves with the more general aspects of the question, let it be observed that, as regards men, this unnatural delay of marriage very frequently brings consequences which, bearing hardly on themselves, later bear not less hardly on hapless womanhood. The later the age to which marriage is delayed, the more are men handicapped in their constant struggle to control the racial instinct under the unnatural conditions in which they find themselves. The great majority of men fail in this unequal fight, and of those who fail an enormous number become infected by disease, with which, when they marry, they infect their wives, sometimes killing them, often causing them lifelong illness, often destroying for ever their chances of motherhood, or making motherhood a horror by the production of children that are an offense against the sun. These are facts known to all who have looked into the matter, but there is no such thing as decent public opinion on the subject, and the author or speaker who dares to allude to them takes his means of living, if not his life, into his hands.

Press of J. J. Little & Ives Co., New York.
Copyright 1911 by Mitchell Kennerley.