Note 247-5 — Chapter II

In 19 European countries, with an aggregate population of 121,000,000, the number of the married amounted to an average of 34.88 per cent. of the whole population. France is at the head with 38.94 per cent. (1866), even 40.5. In these countries, of all adults, there is a percentage of 65.98 who marry. France is here, also, at the head, with a percentage of 73.58. And the number of the unmarried has continually decreased in post-revolutionary France. In 1806, there were only 35.84 per cent. of the population married. (Wappäus, A. Bevölk erungsstatistik, II, 219, 223, 229.) In relation also to the frequency of first marriages and of marriage at the proper age, France is the best situated country. (Haushofer, Lehr- und Handbuch der Statistik, 40 ff.) But at the same time, in what concerns the fruitfulness of marriage, it is the farthest behind; and since 1780 prolificacy has continually decreased there. Thus, 1800-1815, 3.93 legitimate children to a marriage; 1856-60, only 3.03; 1861-6, again 3.08. (Legoyt in the Journal des Econ. Oct. 1870, 28.) How little this depends upon physiological causes may be inferred from the fact that Strabo commends the women of the Gallic race for their peculiar adaptability to bearing and rearing children. (IV, 178, 196.) The "prudential checks" must play a principal part in producing a low birth rate. (Statist. Journal, 1866, 262), as we find in France