The number of illegitimate births followed simultaneously an analogous progression. In France, during the period 1800-1805, it was 4.75 per 100; now, wrote M. Block in 1869, it has gradually risen to 7.25 per 100.[1124] At the same time, and as a consequence of this demographic movement, the proportion of free unions has considerably increased. INCREASE OF DIVORCES.[1125] _The frequency of divorces in 1851-55 being 100, what has it become during the following years?_ France. Saxony. Belgium. Holland. Sweden. Separations. Divorces. Divorces. Divorces. Divorces. 1851-55 100 100 100 100 100 1856-60 128 83 140 100 98 1861-65 150 75 160 112 109 1866-70 190 72 190 115 113 1871-75 163 80 280 139 132 1876-80 225 105 420 151 161 A. Bertillon calculated this proportion for Paris at about a tenth. But these results are simply the logical continuation of the evolution of marriage. It is in the sense of an ever-increasing individual liberty, especially for woman, that this evolution is being effected. Between men and women the conjugal relations have at first been nearly everywhere from masters to slaves; then marital despotism became slowly attenuated, and at Rome, for example, where the gradual metamorphosis may be traced during a long historic period, the power of the _paterfamilias_, which at first had no limit, at length became curbed; the personality of the woman was more and more accentuated, and the rigid marriage of the first centuries of the Republic was replaced under the Empire by a sort of free union. Doubtless this movement necessarily retrograded under the influence of Christianity; but, as always happens in the logic of things, it has, nevertheless, resumed its course; it will become more and more evident, and will surely pass the point at which it stopped in imperial Rome.