peculiar to the Latin races, since we get it from Rome, where recourse was doubtless had to it in order to emancipate patrician women from strict conjugal servitude. But the remedy has become an evil, and it is surely to the love of the dowry rather than to "the beautiful eyes of the casket" that must be attributed a whole list of true marriages by purchase, much more common in our own country than elsewhere. Sometimes it is old men who conjugally purchase young girls, and sometimes old women who buy young husbands. I will especially notice this last category of marriages by purchase. As regards them, France is unworthily distinguished beyond other nations. In our tables of statistics, for example, the proportionate number of marriages between bachelors from eighteen to forty years and women of fifty and upwards, is ten times greater than in England.[1]
Marriages with Women of Fifty Years and upwards. (In a million marriages.)
IN FRANCE. IN ENGLAND.
Age of Number of | Age of Number of
Bachelors. Marriages. | Bachelors. Marriages.
18 to 20 years 64 | 16 to 20 years 0
20 " 25 " 109 | 20 " 25 " 5
25 " 30 " 151 | 25 " 30 " 12
30 " 35 " 188 | 30 " 35 " 22
35 " 40 " 257 | 35 " 40 " 40
—- | —-
769 | 79
We must remark, in comparing these tables, that the first group, including the married men from eighteen to twenty years with women of fifty and upwards, is unknown in England; and that the second group, that of the married men of twenty to twenty-five years with women of fifty years and upwards, is scarcely represented. The comparison is not flattering for us. It is important to note, also, that these figures only refer to first marriages. Tables of the same kind, showing the marriages between young
- ↑ A. Bertillon, loc. cit.
