fixed the minimum age of parties to the marriage con- tract as follows: with the Eomans at thirteen years for females, and at fifteen for males; in Prussia at fifteen and nineteen; in France at fifteen and eighteen; in Aus- tria at sixteen and twenty. These are the ages fixed by dif- ferent nations as indicating the earliest period of nubility. It will be observed that a difference of from two to five years is allowed as the relative marriageable age of the two sexes. It is by no means to be inferred that this dif- ference is intended to indicate the rule for actual practice. It is simply intended to fix the minimum nubile age for each of the sexes. Extended observation would lead us to recommend strongly that a difference of from five years as the minimum to fifteen years as the maxi- mum should be regarded in the choice of com- panions, as there is fully that difference in the two sexes in "growing eld." In our temperate climate we would indicate twenty-one as the nubile age of women, and twenty-six as that of men. Within proper limitations, early marriages are more apt to be prosperous, as regards the health both of parents and children, than late ones. Especially is this true of the relative dangers of child- birth.10
As the average duration of a woman's fecundity is about twenty-five years, and as the mean duration of pregnancy and lactation is eighteen months, it follows that a healthy woman can give birth to sixteen children, but examples are not wanting in which, in consequence of plural births or of prolonged periods of fecundity, as many as twenty-four children have resulted from a single marriage. At least three or six children should be the average product of well-assorted marriages.
0f ill-assorted marriages, in respect to consanguinity.
