95 18.64
1868 14.71 18.79

For widowed and divorced people also the percentage of suicides is
larger than the average. In Saxony there are seven times as many
suicides among divorced males, and three times as many among divorced
females, as the average of suicides for males and females respectively.
Again, suicide is more frequent among divorced and widowed men and women
when they are childless. Of 491 widowed suicides in Prussia (119 males
and 372 females) 353 were childless.

Taking into further consideration that, among the unmarried women, who
are driven to suicide between the ages of 21 and 30, many a one is to be
found, who takes her life by reason of being betrayed, or because she
can not bear the consequences of a "slip," the fact remains that sexual
reasons play a decided _role_ in suicide at this age. Among female
suicides, the figure is large also for those between the ages of 16 to
20, and the fact is probably likewise traceable to unsatisfied sexual
instinct, disappointment in love, secret pregnancy, or betrayal. On the
subject of the women of our days as sexual beings, Professor V.
Krafft-Ebing expresses himself: "A not-to-be-underrated source of
insanity with woman lies in her social position. Woman, by nature more
prone than man to sexual needs, at least in the ideal sense of the term,
knows no honorable means of gratifying the need other than marriage. At
the same time marriage offers her the only support. Through unnumbered
generations her character has been built in this direction. Already the
little girl plays mother with her doll. Modern life, with its demands
upon culture, offers ever slighter prospects of gratification through
marriage. This holds especially with the upper classes, among whom
marriage is contracted later and more rarely. While man--as the
stronger, and thanks to his greater intellectual and physical powers,
together with his social position--supplies himself easily with sexual
gratification, or, taken up with some occupation, that engages all his
energies, easily finds an equivalent, these paths are closed to single
women. This leads, in the first place, consciously or unconsciously, to
dissatisfaction with herself and the world, to morbid brooding. For a
while, perhaps, relief is sought in religion; but in vain. Out of
religious enthusiasm, there spring with or without masturbation, a host
of nervous diseases, among which hysteria and insanity are not rare.