MARRIAGE AND LONGEVITY.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 1987, 18 May 1875, Page 4

MARRIAGE AND LONGEVITY.

In his recently published "Study of Sociology," Mr Herbert Spencer assails a theory that has long been current with regard to marriage and longevity. That married li,fe is favourable to longevity has generally been regarded as satisfactorily proved by numerous statistics, showing, almost without exception, a greater longevity on the part of the married. When the ratio of deaths in the two classes stands at ten to four and even twenty to four, there would appear to be little room for doubt. But to this astuto social scientist, the evidence, strong as it seems, furnishes no warrant for the current belief. He regards the case as substitution of cause for effect; in other words greater longevity is not the consequence of marriage; on the contrary, marriages are clearly traceable to influences favoring longevity. The principles of natural selection work so strongly in deciding between the Benedicts and bachelors, that the long livers are drawn to the former and short livers to the latter. Marriage, Mr.Spencer holds, is regulated by ability to meet its responsibilities. The qualities "Which give the advantage here are intellectual and bodily vigor, prudence, and self-control: these, too, are the qualities which determine a prolonged life or a premature death. An even more direct relation is to be found in the instincts which lead most strongly to marriage. The reproductive instincts and emotions are strong in proportion as the surplus vital energy is great, and this in turn implies an organisation likely to last, " so that, in fact, the superiority of physique, which is accompanied by strength of the instincts and emotions causing marriage, is a superiority of physique also condusive to longevity." Another influence tells in the same direction. Marriage is determined by the preference' of women as well as the desires of men, and, other things being equal, women are attracted towards men of , physical and intellectual power, refusing the malformed, diseased, and ill-developed types. In the operation of these three elements Mr Spencer finds all that is needed to account for the striking difference of longevity between the classes, and declares that " the figures given afford no proof that marriage and longevity are cause and consequence; but they simply verify the inference which might be draw a priori— that marriages and longevity are concomitant results of -the same cause.—London Medical Record.