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.