MARRIAGE ODDS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 164, 14 July 1930, Page 3

MARRIAGE ODDS.

GREAT MATRIMONIAL GAMBLE MALE AND FEMALE VARIATIONS. ARE MATING CHARTS RELIABLE? (From A Xew York Correspondent.) If you wish to bet that you will or will not be married in the next ten years, what odds should you give or take? Or in the next five years? And how do the odds vary for men and women ? The answers to these problems have been neatly put in a graph, by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company that indicates the chances of marriage for men and women between the ages of 15 and 55. This graph shows many interesting and illuminating facts on the subject. In the early years a young woman's chances of getting married are better than a man's, but after 20 the chances of spinsterhood are greater than of bachelorhood. At 20 a woman's chance of being married within the next ten years is two to one in her favour, and for being married in the next five years the odds are about even. But at 30 her chances in the next ten years arc two to one against her. To put it differently, for every five years after the age of 20 that a woman delays marriage she reduces her chances bv one-sixth.

For men the odds go the other way. At 20 a man's chances lag behind a woman's, but at 30 they are distinctly better and remain that way to the age of 55. The reason for this is, of course, that women marry earlier than men. Most wives are younger than their husbands. A girl of 15 has as good a chance of being married in the next three years as a woman of 30 and a little bit less than a man of 30. Her chance is 17 per cent, or one in six. From various sociologists this graph drew different comments. Dr. H. Valentine Wildman, jun., of the Protestant Episcopal City Mission thought the figures very interesting. Minister Supports Theory.' "They fully bear out the results of my observations, particularly in regard to women who have passed* beyond the usual marriage age of around 25. When young people get married they let their attraction for one another blind them to the responsibilities and hardships of marriage, or perhaps their youth prevents them from realising what they are getting into. By the time a woman is 30 she has pretty much put aside the idea of fairly immediate marriage and has taken up some interest in business OT "ias a hobby. She has sublimated her idea of a home and children. She has also seen the world and how it works and .she is more careful about entering matrimony. ''On top of these obstacles in the way of her losing her heart is the fact that she i≤ not so apt to meet marriageable men—and this also applies to men of the same age—as her companions will probably be people of her own age who have already mated. She is not likely to come across single men that she would be willing to join with in matrimony. As to. how she happened to reach 30 without being married, that may depen-i on a number of things. Perhaps she had an early and unfortunate love affair and has soured on the idea. Perhaps she entered a career that took her out of the normal run of life and gave her hours unfavourable to meeting men that she might marry." Feminine Minds Unimpressed. On the other hand, Mrs. Viola Anglin, of the Family Court of New York City, was completely unimpressed. "People are always doing that sort of thing," she said, "but it doesn't mean anything. They come into my office and go through my files. Then they make graphs and compile statistics, and the results are of.no value whatever. Perhaps they show trends, but they certainly show nothing that can be applied to the individual. No one person can be fitted into the thing. You cannot card-index people' 3 matrimonial business. You cannot say that this person will do so and so. People vary too much with age and conditions. Human nature is actuated by so many unknown and unsuspected motives that graphs break down as soon as you endeavour to apply them to specified cases. "For a general instance, take widows. A spinster of 30 may have odds of two to one against her getting married, but I am sure the odds would be much different in the case of a widow."

Professor Emilie Hutehineon, of Barnard College, was mildly interested in the figures, but felt that a lot of their value was lost by the fact that they were not detailed enough. She also felt as Mrs. Anglin did, that such things are not for the individual.

''Wβ all feel that we are the exception, and any one individual is reallv apt to be the exception.

"This chart would be much more valuable if it were split up into groups. To lump the population together in such a way and then say this is how they will behave is grossly inaccurate. Economic groups vary in their habits, as do different classes and the different nationality group that we have in this country. It is misleading to put thorn together and draw a common conclusion.

"The fact that older women have lesi chance of marriage is due to two causes. One is that they acquire interests that lead them away from marriage and the other is that men seem "to prefer younger women. Why is that?" I didn't know.—("Star" and A.A.X.S )