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Show day an ob.ect lesson from which the whole world may derive warning and instruction 1 on the questions of marriage' mar-riage' and Ke familly, those greatest of social irZ Sences. Ainslee's Magazine. Maga-zine. . ;;. MARRIAGE IN FRANCE. Some Striking Facts and DifficaU Problems Prob-lems Presented. It is. a mee truism to say that the welfare of the individual, of society and of the state is best served by marriage, mar-riage, and by early marriage, too. The fact has been established for forty years that the death rate among all i married men over twenty years of age is less than that among unmarried men; and that the death rate among all married women over twenty-five years of age is less than that among unmarried women. The home being the cornerstone of civilized life, society soci-ety is enriched by the multiplication of homes, and impoverished when they are not in normal proportion to the total population. Only within the past few years has world-wide attention been drawn to the startling fact that the well-being of a mighty nation is menaced by the predominance of celibacy. celi-bacy. More than half the men and half the women of France are unmarried. un-married. The foreign immigration Into France is today greater than the natural increase of its own people. The excess of births over deaths in any year among those many millions amounts to only about one-half of the population of Newark, N. J. The result re-sult is that while other nations of Europe Eu-rope are rapidly increasing in population, popula-tion, France is almost stationary, While, a century ago, Frenchmen comprised com-prised a fifth of the European poula-tion poula-tion of the world, they now form only a tenth of 'it. The importance of their country as a world power is not growing. grow-ing. Their international commerce lags far behind that of other leading nations. How empty is the boast of rattlepated orators that France will some day gloriously avenge Sedan, when she can add only 300,000 conscripts con-scripts a year to the army, while 500,-000 500,-000 recruits are annually enrolled across the RJiine! We shall speak later of the mistaken motives, the policy' ruinous alike to the citizen and the; state, that induce many of the French to restrict the number of their children, and half of them to go i through life unmarried. France is tc- |