IT’S NEVER TOO LATE

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 598, 26 February 1929, Page 13

IT’S NEVER TOO LATE

MEN MARRY AT 84 EIGHTEEN AND SIXTY-FIVE MATE Detailed Civil Statistical Tables issued by the Department of the Registrar General throw an interesting light on the matrimonial hahits of the people of England. They show that — Nearly a hundred octogenarians and one old man of ninety were married in 1927. Fewer widows and widowers are giving marriage a second trial. Two old women, aged over eighty, were married for the first time. A man of over seventy married a girl of eighteen and several other septuagenarians married girls in the early twenties. Two boys aged nineteen married women in the forties. Quite a number of boye under twenty married women twice their age. Nearly six out of every thousand unmarried women gave birth to illegitimate children. The number in 1921 was nearly eight, and a generation ago it was nearly ten. Of the 84 old men aged eighty and more who married during the year, the majority were widowers, but four took the plunge for the first time; their ages were eighty, eighty-one, eighty-two, and eighty-six respectively. Thirty-four girls of fifteen years of age, 383 girls of sixteen, and 2,290 girls of seventeen, were married during the year. Several married men who were in the late forties and fifties. One eighteen-year-old girl married a man of sixty-five, and two nine-teen-year-old girls married men who were over sixty. Twelve hoys of sixteen were married, and 172 boys aged seventeen.