In a selected New England village in 1890, he says, "there were forty
marriageable girls between the ages of 20 and 35. To-day thirty-two of
these are married, 20 per cent. are spinsters.
"An investigation of 260 families of the Massachusetts Agricultural
College students shows that out of 832 women over 40 years of age 755 or
91 per cent. have married, leaving only 9 per cent. spinsters. This and
other observations indicate that the daughters of farmers marry more
generally than those of some other classes.
"In sixty-nine (reporting) families represented by the freshman class of
Amherst College (1914) there are 229 mothers and aunts over 40 years of
age, of whom 186 or 81 per cent. have already married.
"It would seem safe to conclude that about 15 per cent. of native women
in general American society do not marry during the child-bearing
period." Deducting 15 per cent. from the 78 possible wives leaves
sixty-six probable wives. Now among the native wives of Massachusetts 20
per cent. do not produce children, and deducting these thirteen
childless ones from the sixty-six probable wives leaves fifty-three
probable, married, child-bearing women, who must be depended on to
reproduce the original 200 individuals with whom we began this chapter.
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