of free unions but an increase of all forms of normal
and abnormal sexuality outside marriage. Thus in England and Wales, in
1906, only 43 per 1,000 husbands and 146 per 1,000 wives were under age,
while the average age for husbands was 28.6 years and for wives 26.4
years. For men the age has gone up some eight months during the past forty
years, for women more than this. In the large cities, like London, where
the possibilities of extra-matrimonial relationships are greater, the age
for legal marriage is higher than in the country.

If we are to regard the age of legal marriage as, on the whole,
the age at which the population enters into sexual unions, it is
undoubtedly too late. Beyer, a leading German neurologist, finds
that there are evils alike in early and in late marriage, and
comes to the conclusion that in temperate zones the best age for
women to marry is the twenty-first year, and for men the
twenty-fifth year.

Yet, under bad economic conditions and with a rigid marriage law,
early marriages are in every respect disastrous. They are among
the poor a sign of destitution. The very poorest marry first, and
they do so through the feeling that their condition cannot be
worse. (Dr. Michael Ryan brought together much interesting
evidence concerning the causes of early marriage in Ireland in
his _Philosophy of Marriage_, 1837, pp. 58-72). Among the poor,
therefore, early marriage is always a misfortune. "Many good
people," says Mr. Thomas Holmes, Secretary of the Howard
Association and missionary at police courts (in an interview,
_Daily Chronicle_, Sept. 8, 1906), "advise boys and girls to get
married in order to prevent what they call a 'disgrace.' This I
consider to be absolutely wicked, and it leads to far greater
evils than it can possibly avert."

Early marriages are one of the commonest causes both of
prostitution and divorce. They lead to prostitution in
innumerable cases, even when no outward separation takes place.
The fact that they lead to divorce is shown by the significant
circumstance that in England, although only 146 per 1,000 women
are under twenty-one at marriage, of the wives concerned in
divorce cases, 280 per 1,000 were under twenty-one at marriage,
and this discrepancy is even greater than it appears, for in the
well-to-do class, which can alone afford the luxury of divo