In the early colonial days of America “every farmer and his sons raised wool and flax; his wife and daughters spun them into thread and yarn, knit these into stockings and mittens, or wove them into linen and cloth, and then made them into clothing. Even in large cities nearly all women spun yarn and thread, all could knit, and many had hand-looms to weave cloth at home.... All persons who were not employed in other ways, as single women, girls, and boys, were required to spin. Each family must contain one spinner.... There were no drones in this hive. Neither the wealth nor high station of parents excused children from this work. Thus all were leveled to one kind of labor, and by this leveling all were elevated to independence.”[78] In all rural communities of modern Europe much of women’s work is of considerable importance from an economic point of view, and there is little incentive for a man to remain single from economic prudence. Instead of an economic burden the wife is more often a helpmeet who even offers her services for pay outside the home. She works in the fields like a man and is an important factor when estimating the value of labor on the farm. Letourneau says, “At Paris, where the struggle for existence is more severe, and where the care for money is more predominant, late marriages abound, and it is only above the age of forty for men and thirty-five for women that the marriage rate equals and even exceeds, that of the whole of France.”[79] The constant drifting of country population into large cities where employment can be found is affecting markedly the life of the rural community, and tending to postpone the formation of family ties until an economic foothold is secured.[80] There has been a slight diminution of the marriage rate since the middle of the nineteenth century, but so many forces have come into play that one is hardly justified in the conclusion that this decrease is due entirely to economic causes. _Number of Marriages Per 1000 Population._[81] ---------------+----------+----------+---------- | 1876-80. | 1881-85. | 1886-90. ---------------+----------+----------+---------- Hungary | 9.6 | 10.3 | 8.9 Prussia | 8.0 | 8.0 | 8.1 Germany | 7.8 | 7.7 | 7.9 Austria | 7.8 | 7.9 | 7.7 Italy | 7.5 | 8.0 | 7.8 France | 7.6 | 7.5 | 7.2 Belgium | 6.9 | 6.8 | 7.1 Great Britain | 7.1 | 7.1 | 6.9 Switzerland | 7.4 | 6.8 | 7.0 Denmark | 7.8 | 7.7 | 7.0 Norway | 7.2 | 6.6 | 6.3 Sweden | 6.6 | 6.5 | 6.1 ---------------+----------+----------+---------- Some statisticians see co-relation between the price of food and the marriage rate.[82]