Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 82.djvu/611

Rh married four times. Though the numbers are small, it is of interest to note that 42 per cent, of the group of women who became eminent because of political influence or ability were married more than once. Of the total group of musicians, 30.6 per cent, had more than one husband.

Eminent women have not, on the whole, made particularly successful wives, since 11.6 per cent, of the 781 unions of which we have record have ended in separation or divorce. 36 of the 91 cases of dissolution occurred in families where both husband and wife were famous.

Divorces have been most frequent among distinguished women of German birth. It is barely posiblepossible [sic] that we have found these results, not because of actual conditions, but because the German encyclopedias are more inclined to give details of domestic life than are those of other nations. The German divorce rate, however, is known to be high. Though much is said about the alarming increase of the rate of divorce in America, it does not hold in the case of eminent women (3 cases).

I have tried to discover whether divorce has been more or less frequent when the husband and wife have been engaged in the same occupation than when their interests were more or less diverse. I hoped to learn whether a singer has been more apt to run into matrimonial shipwreck if she married a composer than if she chose a lawyer for a husband. Has it been safer for a literary woman to marry a scholar or a banker? My figures are not very conclusive, owing to the small number of cases in each occupation, but where a conclusion is warranted, our table tends to show that artists and musicians are safer matrimonially when married to men whose interests are in fields different from their own. In other words, it is better when the husband and wife are not both engaged in an activity which is controlled by temperament and inspiration rather than by reason. In the case of actresses, the percentage of divorce is just the same when the husband is an actor as when he is engaged in some other occupation. With writers, the divorce rate is slightly smaller when the husband is a literary man.

Royal divorces are recorded as remote as the fourth century before Christ. Eminent women not of aristocratic birth have obtained divorces only in the last three centuries.

It has been impossible to discover at what age these women became eminent, but in 670 cases I have been able to ascertain the age at death. Curve IV. represents the age distribution graphically. Both ends of the curve are interesting. Nine women died before they were twenty; nineteen lived to be over ninety. The average length of life is 60.8 years. The slight rise in the curve for eminent women in the twenties, and again in the forties, tends to confirm Galton's conclusion that "among the gifted men there is a small class who have weak and