CHAPTER XIII.

SEX, AGE, AND SOCIAL STATE.

The relative proportion of suicides exhibited by the sexes is one of the data in connection with our subject that received the earliest attention, and from such early observations, until the present time, the proportion has been remarkably constant in our own country, and throughout Europe.

Three males to one female is the prevailing rate shown by the majority of states reckoned in their entirety. In urban districts, and in the great cities the female proportion is increased, and averages one woman to two men. The Spaniards form the most notable exception to the average, female suicide even in the rural districts of Spain being abnormally frequent; Italy, which resembles Spain in many peculiarities, is not similar in this respect.

As a reason for the predominance of male suicide, attention is called to the fact that the struggle for existence falls at the present time, and always has fallen chiefly to the men of a state, the typical female mind, it should also be remembered, is more capable of accommodating itself to change of circumstances, and is also more marked by powers of self-sacrifice, than the male intellect.

The more prominent causes of male suicide are the vices, money troubles, and tædium vitæ; whilst females are more often driven to take their lives by the passions, mental weaknesses, remorse, and shame.

It is a peculiarity of female self-destruction that Sunday is very frequently chosen as the day for its commission; on the other hand, males avoid Sunday very markedly.

In Geneva, an old notification, dated 1777, was recently found, stating that two out of three voluntary deaths in the city were those of men.

In the decennial period 1861-70, the proportion of 293 males to 100 females was found in England and Wales; but in the 10 years 1871-80, the rate for males had increased up to 306, to 100 females; since then, however, the female rate has again gone up, being in 1882 not less than 100 women to 278 men.

The Registrar General calculated in 1880 that the chance of a male infant dying by suicide in England, was 1 to 211, and of a female so doing was 1 to 578.

The female rate for England has always been higher than that of many continental states.

With respect to London, in 1878 the proportions were 2·5 to 1; and in 1881, the female rate was less; 3·03 men to 1 woman.

In Paris, of late years, the female rate has been very high; 1·2 male to 1 female.

Scotland shows a high female rate.

The present proportions of the European countries are: France, 79 to 21; Italy, 80 to 20; Prussia, 82 to 18; Spain, 71 to 29; Saxony, 77 to 23; Russia, 80 to 20; Holland, 78 to 22; Ireland, 78 to 22; and Scotland, 72 to 28.

For the United States of America, the estimated numbers are 79·25 to 20·75.

For the English colonists in Australia, 82 to 18 is the estimated proportion.

As an illustration of the trifling causes which sometimes lead to the act, I may mention that Drs. Georget and Falret have both stated in medical journals that French women have frequently committed suicide, only because they have happened to lose their personal charms of appearance.─Burrows.

The female sex contributes a considerable number of cases dependent on child-birth; these are of two classes: suicide during the course of the mental failure, the puerperal mania, so well known to occur at times in pregnancy and after parturition; and those saddening cases of self-destruction occurring as a sequence to the mental anxiety and shame, depending on pregnancy and child-birth in single women, who are constantly being seduced under promise either of marriage, or at least of maintenance, and then deserted by men whose malevolence is only equalled by their lust.

Simple hysteria is also the cause of a small percentage of female suicides; the amatory passion being usually primarily at fault.

AGE.

In a calculation including the greater part of Europe, the effect of age is found to be such that the proportion of suicide increases from childhood up to about fifty-five years of age, and then declines very uniformly.

The largest numbers occur in the years between forty and fifty.

Taking both sexes together, the period of life which exhibits by far the most cases extends from twenty-one to sixty years of age.

The male tendency comes to its maximum after forty years of age.

The female tendency comes to its maximum before thirty years of age.

In England the ratio of female suicide between the years of fifteen and twenty exceeds the male by more than one-tenth. In Italy it has been observed the rate becomes high, at an earlier age than in Europe generally. Youth is a fertile suicide stage, and after a stationary period at a high rate, there comes another period marking the decay of mind and the declension of life; in this, man has but a short future to regard, and he prefers to await a natural end, especially as at this time of life the religious feelings, often clouded over by the struggles of middle life, again shine clear. Esquirol wrote, “La vieillesse, qui inspire à l’homme le desir de vivre, parcequ’il est plus près du terme de la vie, est rarement exposée au suicide.” See “Maladies mentales.” There exists, however, some confusion in the matter, due to associating actual numbers with per-centages at various ages, inasmuch as Legoyt insists that the amount increases absolutely with age.

The Registrar General for England has stated that the suicidal tendency with regard to age increases with the advance of age to the 65-75 decennial period, and that it then diminishes, still however remaining very great; in this country then the amount does not decrease at such an early age, as in most of the countries of Europe.

I add as an example, the Swedish proportions during the several periods of life, to show the rate for age:

────────────────┬───────┬──────── AGE. │ Male. │ Female. ────────────────┼───────┼──────── To 16 years │ 3·5 │ 0·9 16 to 20 years │ 19·1 │ 8·8 21 to 30 years │ 91·3 │ 29·2 31 to 40 years │ 161·3 │ 23·2 41 to 50 years │ 206·3 │ 35·0 51 to 60 years │ 201·7 │ 34·2 61 to 70 years │ 146·3 │ 27·9 Beyond 70 years │ 93·7 │ 19·4 ────────────────┴───────┴───────

In New York, during 1883, of 151 cases, 9 were under twenty years of age, and 5 over seventy years.

SUICIDE IN CHILDHOOD.

Suicide, apart from lunacy, is the act of passion, or despair, and so far spares childhood, during which stage of life one is protected by others from care, and when the mind is not yet opened enough to feel the overwhelming tides of amatory, jealous, and other passionate feelings which the adult intellect has to struggle through, and perchance survive. It is very rare, also, for insanity to occur in a child before puberty, unless congenital, as imbecility.

Brierre de Boismont gives the ages of 4,595 suicides in Paris; amongst these were 77 children under fourteen years of age, 1·6 per cent.

From 1865 to 1874, in England, there were 81 suicides from ten to fourteen years of age, 45 male and 36 female; the ratio between these numbers shows female precocity. Child suicide is increasing in England and in almost all the continental states.

Childhood possesses a most highly sensitive mental organisation, coupled with a want of power to fully weigh the consequences of any act; but what undoubtedly causes many cases now is over-pressure in education; while the education itself produces precocious development of the reflective faculties, of vanity, and of the desires.

During the last few years there have been several English cases of children killing themselves, because unable to perform school tasks; yet it must be allowed that the most modern alteration in school life,─the abolition of corporal punishment,─has removed one fertile cause of suicide in childhood. _See_ Ferrey and Collineau.

A writer in the Psychological Journal discusses 24 cases, 17 boys and 7 girls; of these children 1 was five years old, 2 nine, 2 ten, 5 eleven, and 7 twelve. All the girls drowned themselves.

MARRIAGE, CELIBACY, WIDOWHOOD.

Having regard simply to numbers, there are most suicides among the unmarried, next among the married, then among widowed persons, and lastly, among persons divorced and separated.

Bachelors kill themselves oftener than married men; but in Italy, France, Switzerland and Saxony, married women oftener than virgins. Widows surpass widowers in frequency of suicide, and it has been suggested by statistics that widowhood in this respect brings woman nearer to man than any other social condition.

Wars tend to raise the rate among women, because they make so many widows; the suicide rate of widows rose in a sudden leap in Germany and in France, when the last war broke out, and remained over and above the rate of virgins and wives for two years after.

Married men have, throughout, the lowest rate; suicide is more frequent among celibate men than among virgins.

Divorce causes more male suicide than female.

Among men, allowing for extant numbers of each class, we find these resultant proportions for 1882:─

───────────┬──────────┬──────────┬───────── COUNTRIES. │ Married. │ Single. │ Widowed. ───────────┼──────────┼──────────┼───────── France │ 100 │ 104 │ 160 Italy │ 100 │ 114 │ 198 Wurtemburg │ 100 │ 147 │ 162 ───────────┴──────────┴──────────┴─────────

Taking France as an example, the following proportions are found among the suicides, after excluding males under fifteen years of age, and females under eighteen:─

───────────┬───────────┬──────────┬───────── THE SEXES. │ Celibate. │ Married. │ Widowed. ───────────┼───────────┼──────────┼───────── Men │ 422·14 │ 271·71 │ 737·0 Women │ 80·00 │ 80·87 │ 121·0 ───────────┴───────────┴──────────┴─────────

That is, unmarried men fewer than widowers. Unmarried women a trifle fewer than married women.

In Prussia, curiously enough, these states are altered; married men kill themselves the most often, and married women kill themselves the least often.

Italy, again, resembles France.

In New York, for 1883, of 124 men and 27 women who killed themselves, 78 were married, 43 single, and 24 widowed or divorced.

Another curious remark has been made, whenever and wherever the marriage rate is falling, the suicide rate is increasing, and the reverse. The first case is shown, of late years, by France, Germany, England, Austria; in Italy and Switzerland, from 1875, and in Belgium, from 1873 to 1876.

On the other hand, Holland, Norway and Finland, show an increase in the number of marriages, and a tendency to a lower suicide rate.

The presence of children to married life affects the suicide rate; they restrain the mother more than the father, in married life and widowhood; whilst they have the contrary effect on divorced persons.

In France, for example, the suicide loss among the married, where there are children, is 205 per million men to 45 per million women; where there are no children, it is 470 per million men to 158 per million women; and among widowed persons, where there are children, the rate is 526 per million men to 104 per million women; and where there are no children, it is 1,004 per million men to 238 per million women.

Bertillon remarks that widows are much less anxious than widowers to marry again; that many widows become so to their peace and happiness, and the isolation and bereavement of widowhood are usually overbalanced by woman’s noblest virtue and care, maternal love; where there is no such outcome needed, suicide fastens its fangs on the mind.