MARRY AND LIVE LONG.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 969, 21 March 1911, Page 4

MARRY AND LIVE LONG.

The ladies who have been advocating a tax on bachelors on the ground that non-marrying men should be penalised will be very much obliged to an eminent French physician, Dr. Jacques Bertilion, for having discovered an almost invincible argument in favour of marriage. It has long been a favourite theory with some of the faculty that married men live longer than bachelors. Dr. Bertilion claims to have proved it to a demonstration, as far as carefully compiled statistics can prove anything. He has studied the records of the bachelors and benedicts in many lands, and he says that longevity and marriage are always associated. Other things being equal, the spinster and the bachelor have no chance with the married man and woman for a long life. Motherhood does not interfere with this law. The life insurance companies could well afford to give a policy at half rates to the married man or woman as against the confirmed bachelor or spinster. If we may believe Dr. Bertilion, the longevity of the married is thrice that of the single —a statement which makes us a trifle incredulous ; but the lively Frenchman goes further and says that widowers are subject to the same disability. The average widower of 40 will not live as long as he who marries again. The absolute dictum of statistics, he says, is the same as that of r .he Scriptures, that “it is not good for man to be alone.” These kinds of reasonings may not have very much cogency with the man who lays himself out for “a short life and a merry one,” but for the normal “mere man,” who wants to get his lull and fair share out of the joys of living, Dr. Bertillon’s figures will be an interesting study.