A Widow's Chance Against a Maid's Almost everybody will agree, I think, that if there were as many widows as maids, of corresponding age, the widows would outstrip the maids in the number of marriages. For there is no denying that a widow has "a way" with her . "A little widow is a dangerous thing," has been said. She has all the wisdom that the maid has, and in addition she taken her post-graduate degree. Not only has she learned much about the art of handling a mate, but she is in a position to get a proper perspective on her work and profit by past mistakes. [text graphic] On the average, other factors being equal, a widow has a greater appeal as a marriage risk than a maid. Nineteen out of every 100 of the 1982 widows who were married, during the year of the figures before me, in Massachusetts, were 25 to 29 years of age, 18 out of every 100 were between 30 and 34, and 1 were from 35 to 39. In other words, a widow is such an attractive marriage proposition that her age doesn't really matter. Practically as many marry between 30 and 34, and from 35 to 39, as from 25 to 29. This is not true of maids. A maid of from 35 to 39 has only about a one-fifth chance of marrying that she had between 25 and 29. But a widow at 39 is within less than one per cent of having as good a chance as she would have had ten or fifteen years earlier. If a widow desires to marry a bachelor, her chances are greatly enhanced. If she will catch him fairly young, inasmuch as it would appear that bachelors who marry widows do so between 25 and 30 more than at any other age. An astonishingly large number of widows past 30 marry bachelors younger than themselves. Of 357 widows between 30 and 34, 101 married bachelors from 25 to 29. Do Men Marry Oftener Than Women? If a widow entertains ambitions of marrying a widower, her chances are good clear up to 45. From 40 to 44 she has a fairly good chance to marry a widower as young as she is: but widowers seem to be more shrewd than bachelors about marrying women as old or older than themselves. No, from 45 years on, it would seem to be necessary for a widow to pick a man a few years her senior. Ninety out of every 100 of the 34,386 men who were married were married for the first time, 3272 were married for the second time, 212 for the third time and 9 for the fourth time. Ninety-one out of every 100 of the 34, 386 women who were married were maids; 2854 were married for the second time, 126 for the third time, and only 2 for the fourth time. The Favorite Months to Marry In It is interesting to see from these figures when folks marry - that is, in which month. As all the months have not the same number of days, the monthly incidence is reduced to a uniform basis by considering the average number of marriages a day. Throughout the year, this average daily number was 94. June has the call, with 4792 marriages. The daily averages for the twelve months and their order was as follows: June, 160, October, 133; November, 121; September, 120; July, 87; February, 85; May, 83; August, 79; January, 76; April, 71; December, 67; March, 51. Some of these relative figures are not surprising; others are. June, of course, is the month of romance. Nature is then at her best. It is not much wonder that persons desiring to marry at all should have a preference for setting out together in June. October, with its gorgeousness of foliage, is almost equally desirable. In November the setting provided by nature is only a trifle less attractive than in October. September provides a convenient connubial haven for those who have worked up a brisk romance during the summer vacations. Why So Few Marry in December and January But why should there be such a sudden drop from November to December? And why should the rate continue low through several months following? The most plausible theory is that the reason is at least partly economic. In December or January one is reminded of the necessity of buying coal and nourishing food and heavy clothing, and of renting a snugly built house. It seems more of a responsibility to try to face the high cost of living in winter than in the spring or summer, when nature has provided an environment of plenty. With fruit hanging on the trees, and the fields full of grains, one gets the impression that there must be abundant food for all, and the economic problems incident to marriage are lost sight of. Furthermore, through the winter months it is not always an easy matter to marry [obscured] and untrammeled courtship. The man cannot make the headway in a sentimental direction that he could on a moonlit night in May, for example. It is too cold and bleak to do much courting out in the open. Another fact is that a man is more reconciled to be alone in winter. If he lives in a hall bedroom and the weather is cold and blustery outside, he can stay at home and read and be fairly content. But in spring or summer, when it is too hot to stay indoors, a man rather likes to have congenial feminine company. Moreover, inasmuch as young people are thrown together more in summer, there are greater opportunities to find congenial company. It will be noted that April, a spring month, also has a low daily average of marriages. So has May. But a courtship requires time. A marriage does not followimmediately upon an opportunity for a sentimental attachment. The courtships that get under way during the winter and early spring months probably culminate in June. That banner month of matrimony rather cleans up the situation for the time being, and the summer months are necessary to provide another crop of engaged couples for the autumn wedding season. Besides, it is not romantic to be married in the extreme hot weather. Hence July and August are comparatively dull months. 1 of Every 9 Couples Get Divorced Now as to divorces. When a couple get married the chances are one to nine that the match will end in divorce court. Nor do the eight marriages out of nine without divorce represent the ratio of matrimonial happiness. Because a couple have not applied for a divorce it does not necessarily follow that their relationship is happy or satisfactory. Lack of courage to face the talk that a divorce might occasion, or sense of duty toward the children, naturally deters thousands of couples from severing the ties that bind them, though they might greatly prefer to be free. According to the reports of the Census Bureau, there were 108,702 divorces in the United States in 1916. Of these 31 out of every 100 were granted to the husband and 69 to the wife. The much larger proportion of divorces granted to the wife is probably due to the fact that the wife has a legal ground for separation more frequently than the husband Of the total number of divorces, irrespective of the party to which granted, desertion is given as the principal cause, and cruelty as the next; these two grounds accounted for nearly two-thirds of all the divorces granted in 1916. Of those granted to the husband, desertion was the cause in practically one-half the cases; infidelity on the part of his wife was the cause in one-fifth , and cruelty a little more than one-sixth of all the cases. Of those granted to the wife, however, cruelty and desertion constituted nearly a third each. Infidelity on the part of the husband furnished a cause in only 7 out of every 100 cases, in contrast to 20 in every 100 cases on account of infidelity by the wife. But as the government report suggests, "this difference may be attributed to the probability that the offense, when committed by the wife, is less likely to be condoned and, perhaps, more likely to be discovered. Ten Years Usually Decides The Government reports on divorce do not provide figures on the duration of marriage before a divorce is obtained. For these we must turn again to the results of the investigations in Massachusetts. The figures there indicate that the average duration of marriage prior to divorce is 10.6 years. Far more divorces are given to couples who have been married from 10 to 19 years than to those who have tried it only from 1 to 4 years. Of a total of 2789 divorces granted in Massachusetts during the year under consideration, 917 had been married from 5 to 9 years, and 887 from 10 to 19 years. Those figures, considered in connection with the large percentage of youthful marriages, seem to bear out the theory advanced earlier in this article: that youthful marriages, while on the whole desirable, yet are certain to produce a sizable crop of divorces. After about ten years people's tastes undergo a considerable change. If a man's ideas and inclinations and his wife's change along similar lines, all is well; if in opposite directions, they find themselves more or less discontented. Hence the large number of divorces that are sought after ten years or more. It takes that long for their temperaments to undergo the shift that makes life together no longer pleasant.