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1911]
24
MARRIAGES.
There were 5,686 persons married or 2,843 marriages, in 1911, and the
marriage rate, that is to say the number of persons married per 1,000 of the
population was 17.37. Compared with the preceding year these figures show
a decrease of 54 in the number of persons married, or of 27 marriages, and of
0.l3 per 1,000 in the rate. These are decreases of a negligible character.
Any person, who studies the marriage records of Islington, cannot fail
to notice that the mean marriage rate has been maintained at a fairly uniform
level during the last seventy-two years. Indeed, in only two decades was it
below 170 per 1,000 of the population; namely in 1841-50, when it averaged
16-81 per 1,000, and in 1881-90, when it was 15.55. During the decade 1901-10
it was 17.76, ranging from 16.84 in 1909 to 18.32 in 1903.
The number of marriages in a community is usually considered a gauge of
its prosperity ; and if the theory be correct then, despite all the pessimistic talk
of some local people, Islington cannot be in the very parlous state that they
would have us think. During the last seven years there has been an almost
continuous outcry as to the decline of the borough, and yet in only two of
these years, namely in 1908 and 1909, did the marriage rate fall below 17.0 per
1,000 of the population, and in these it was 16.88 and 16.84 respectively; these
decreases are insignificant. The calamity which overtook Upper Street led
doubtless to the exaggerated inference that the borough was in a bad way,
as if there was only one great business thoroughfare in the borough. These
marriage statistics prove, however, that the patient was not so ill, if he were ill
at all, as the many doctors, who described and prescribed for his disease, alleged.
Perhaps the patient will recover (indeed, he has recovered), now that the
quinquennia] valuation is over; although for the matter of that, his pulse, which
in this case is the marriage rate, was very good at the height of his illness, which
is to say at the time in which the valuation was made, being just about the
average of the preceding ten years.
The figures relating to marriage are not to be lightly tossed on one side
as of no significance. On the contrary there are none which so accurately indicate
the state of trade, the poverty and the prosperity of the people, as they do;
and, therefore, when they are high there can be little doubt that the community
is prosperous. Men who are out of work, who are on short time, who are
obliged to contribute their scanty wages to the up-keep of their father's home
so as to keep a shelter over the heads of their parents and of their sisters and
brothers cannot afford to get married. Nor do they, for they do not require