In calculating the possibilities of marriage on a statistical basis, the method is frequently adopted of subtracting all the widows from the population and pointing out that in the remainder (the widowers not being subtracted) there is a slight surplus of men; the moral is drawn that every woman can get married if she will only make herself agreeable, and not be too particular. Putting aside the practical objection that all men are not able to support a wife, and the sentimental one that numerical equality does not guarantee mutual attraction, this method of calculation ignores several important facts. One of these is the preference that men feel for women younger than themselves as wives and that women feel for men older than themselves as husbands. Granted an equal number of males and females between the ages of eighteen and thirty, we have not therefore in English society an equal number of marriageable men and women. Wherever rather late marriage is the rule with men--that is, wherever there is a high standard of comfort--the disproportion is correspondingly great. In a district where boy-and-girl marriages are very common, everybody can be married and be more or less miserable ever after; but in the upper middle class equality in numbers at certain ages implies a surplus of marriageable women over marriageable men. Nor do equal numbers at the same age imply equal numbers in the same locality. Women’s work and men’s work cannot always be found in equal proportions in the same district; and class habits may affect the stream of migration differently. The daughters of working-men go out to service or emigrate, while the daughters of well-to-do people stay at home; while, on the other hand, the percentage of sons of professional men who go to the colonies or to India is probably much greater than the percentage of sons of working-men. There is a probability, therefore, that the sexes will be distributed unequally in different districts and also in different classes of society. 1881.--_Number of Females to every 100 Males in_ +----------+-----------+--------+----------+-------+ | |Kensington.|Hackney.|Islington.|LONDON.| | | | | | | +----------+-----------+--------+----------+-------+ |=All ages=| =149·8= |=122·4= | =113·3= |=112·3=| |Under 5} | | | | | | years } | 99·9 | 102·0 | 97·9 | 99·9 | | 5-10 | 105·1 | 103·3 | 100·4 | 101·1 | | 10-15 | 122·1 | 110·2 | 104·3 | 103·9 | | 15-20 | 172·9 | 145·0 | 123·4 | 114·7 | | 20-25 | 195·9 | 142·3 | 118·9 | 112·9 | | 25-30 | 187·2 | 128·1 | 115·3 | 110·7 | | 30-35 | 171·9 | 120·0 | 111·9 | 114·5 | |=35-45= | =152·2= |=118·9= | =111·7= |=111·8=| | 45-55 | 153·6 | 125·1 | 120·4 | 117·0 | +----------+-----------+--------+----------+-------+