People Marry Older.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLI, Issue 19, 4 November 1908, Page 7

People Marry Older.

People nowadays marry much later in Ife than they dir l a few years back. Taking all marriages of whatever kind, I find that the average age of the wife at the time of marriage is 2CJ years, while that of the husband is 2SI years, says a Home statistician. Both ages represent a continuous increase. In particular the number of women who marry under the age of twenty-one has become considerably less. Al one time “sweet seventeen” was almost a commonplace as a bride; to-day she is rare. In the list thirty years brides of under twen-ty-one years of age have decreased in every 1,000 marriages from 217 to 152. From the age point of view, a woman's best chance of marriage lies between the ages of twenty and thirty, but the years which lie beyond these do not by any means eliminate a good chance. lx-t nie take, for instance, the 257,856 women who married in England and Wales in the last recorded year. Six married at fourteen years of age. nine at fifteen, 121 ai sixteen, 987 at. seventeen. 5.622 at. eighteen, 12,793 at nineteen, and 19,830 at; twenty. Between the ages of twentyone and of twenty-five no fewer than 103,4211 women married. Of these 102,964 were spinsters and 462 were widows. Again taking up the record, one gathers that between twenty-five and thirty 68.203 married: between thirty and thirty-five, 22,063; from thirty five to forty, 9,772; from forty to forty-five, 5.294; between that and fifty, 3,125; from the half century to fifty-five, L81T; from that age to sixty, 931 : and above sixty as many as 674.

The Institute of Marine Hngineer* were in the unique position of being the only Institute outside Great Britain that combined master and men in the one Organisation, and during the 15 years he had been secretary of the Institute they Lad not had a cross word with their employers.—-Mr. A. R. Hialop, Secretary Institute of Marine Engineers.