MARRIAGE ANO TRADE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 97, 24 April 1912, Page 3

MARRIAGE ANO TRADE.

SYMPATHETIC FLUCTUATIONS. NEW ZEALAND^ EXPERIENCE. Cupid bend* his bow juct as merrily when times are good as when times are bad, and hearts are hit, but the trooping of victims to the altar or the registrar* office slackens when trad* declines. "It is a well known fact that the marriage rate fluctuates with the change© in the prosperity of a country," lemark* Dr M'llraith in "The Course- of Prices in Nbw Zealand." After comparing the variations of the marriage rate in sympathy with the ccst of living, he 6ays :—: — "From this it -would appear that, if the inflation or depression is slightly prolonged, a rise in the maxri»ge-rat» lags a year behind a rise, and a fall a year b»hind a fall,- in the- price-level. Apparently the spirits of a minority of these who contemplate matrimony are as easily depressed a* tyiey are elated. The effects of the bursting of the land-boom in 1879 and 1880 are vividly portrayed by the sharp fall in. the marriage-rate; so, too. is the gicom and depression of the 'eighties.' Ketrsuchment schemes and 'soup-kitchen* policies do not induce a high marriage-rate, according to the tale told by the inde.se numbers, for 1886-89. But hope of marriage springs eternal in the human breast, and tie rather abrupt rise in prices in 1889, 1890, and 1891 is attended by a rise nf the marriageratß in 1890-1-2. When in 1895 the pricelevel touched its lowest, so, too, did the marriage-rate. From that time, the mar-riage-rate ikes coincidently with, but much fister than, the price-level. A long-continued period of prosperity seems to encourage enterprise ; the ■■marriagerate becomes much more sensitive, and lesponds moie immediately to change* in the price-level. A slightly abrupt rustiu prices— e.g., in. 19CXJ, 1906, and 190/ —fiends up th* i-ate immediately ; while a temporary fall— e.g., in ISOI, i 904, aaid 1908 — ci< u&es merely a l-stardatiou or cessation of the upward mmement. "If w« comparo the index number of the marriage-rate with the index numbers of farm and non-farm commodities, we find that, on the whole, the fluctuations in the marriage-rate correspond more closely with variations in the price* of farm products than with those in nonfarm products. In a country the chief wealth of which lies in -its cornfields and pastures, this must of necessity be so." ."Thus the marriage rate," concludes the investigator, "appeara a most faithful barometer of commercial prosperity. It indicates more clearly than the pricelevel the decline, or fall iv the prosperity of the nation."