But we must not exaggerate the importance of these obstacles to marriage. When the man is not able to buy a wife for himself, he may, in many cases, acquire her by working for some time with her parents, or by eloping with her. Moreover, as Sir John Lubbock remarks, the price of a wife is generally regulated by the circumstances of the tribe, so that nearly every industrious young man is enabled to get one.[852] Speaking of the Sumatrans, Marsden observes that the necessity of purchasing does not prove such an obstacle to matrimony as is supposed, for there are few families who are not in possession of some small substance, and the purchase-money of the daughters serves also to provide wives for the sons.[853] Again, polygyny is, as we shall see further on, almost everywhere restricted to a small minority of the people, and is very often connected with the fact that there is a surplus of women. Thus, among the polygynous Waguha, as I am informed by Mr. Swann, unmarried grown-up men do not exist, the women being more numerous than the men. At any rate, we may conclude that at earlier stages of civilization, when polygyny was practised less extensively and women were less precious chattels than they afterwards became, celibacy was a much rarer exception than it is now among many of the lower races. Passing to the peoples of Europe, we find, from the evidence adduced by statisticians, that modern civilization has proved very unfavourable to the number of marriages. In civilized Europe, in 1875, more than a third of the male and female population beyond the age of fifteen lived in a state of voluntary or involuntary celibacy. Excluding Russia, the number of celibates varied from 25·57 per cent. in Hungary to 44·93 per cent. in Belgium. And among them there are many who never marry.[854] In the middle of this century, Wappäus found that, in Saxony, 14·6 per cent. of the unmarried adult population died single; in Sweden, 14·9 per cent.; in the Netherlands, 17·2 per cent.; and in France, 20·6 per cent.[855] Of the rest, many marry comparatively late in life. Thus, in Denmark, only 19·43 per cent. of the married men were under twenty-five, and in Bavaria (in 1870-1878), only 16.36, whilst the figures for England and Russia look more favourable, being respectively 51·90 per cent. (in 1872-1878), and 68·31 per cent. (in 1867-1875). Of the married women, on the other hand, only 5·09 per cent. are below the age of twenty in Sweden, 5·40 per cent. in Bavaria, 7·44 per cent. in Saxony, 14·86 per cent. in England, &c.; but in Hungary as many as 35·16 per cent., and in Russia even 57·27 per cent.[856] The mean age of the bachelors who enter into matrimony is 26 years in England and 28·48 in France, that of the spinsters respectively 24·07 and 25·3.[857]