Manawatu Herald TUESDAY, SEPTEMB. 23. 1919. FEPTILITY OF THE POPULATION.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 2032, 23 September 1919, Page 2

Manawatu Herald TUESDAY, SEPTEMB. 23. 1919. FEPTILITY OF THE POPULATION.

SOME curious and,interesting facts are to be gleaned from the 90 pages, closely crammed with figures, of that part of the report on the census taken on October 15th, 1910, just issued, which deals with the fertility of the population. One learns, for instance, that on the date mentioned there were in (he Dominion 30 married men and 1,000 married women under twenty years of age. There were 103 husbands and 1,281 wives 20 years of age, and 2-1-1 husbands and 1,918 wives 21 ycais of age. The tendency nowadays, it is said, is to marry at a later age than did our'grandparents, but these figures show that a fair number of young New Zealanders arc not nfraid to undertake the responsibilities of married life at a comparatively. tender age. In a large proportion 'of cases (he wives of these youthful Benedicts wore older than their husbands. The records show two youths under 20 with wives of 28, two of 20 years whose wives were 29, two others whose wives were 30, one with a wife of 3S ; and another with one of 45, and two young men of 21 whose wives were 47 years old. The discrepancy in age is even more marked at the other end of man’s life, for we find a number of men between.4o and 50, and one of 02, with wives who had not yet readied their twentieth year, a man of 64 with a wife of 23, and one in the “00 and upwards” class married to a young woman 40 years his junior.