ave spread to the Mohammedans, the Buddhists, and the
Animists, notwithstanding the fact that religious reasons for such
marriages exist only in the case of the Hindus. In the year 1881, for
every 1000 persons under 10 years of age, 99 were married, of these 24
being boys, and 75 girls. In the year 1901, the number of married
persons under 10 years of age was 158 per 1000, of whom 20 were children
under 5 years old. This is an enormous percentage: and although
Fehlinger himself draws attention to the fact that marriage in childhood
is not always tantamount to the beginning of sexual intercourse, since
in many cases years will intervene between marriage and the commencement
of cohabitation, yet in many other instances no such interval exists. E.
Ruedin[111] also deals with the question of child-marriages in India,
discussing it from the point of view of racial degeneration. He states
that, with one exception, modern writers are agreed that the
consequences of the Indian custom of child-marriage are altogether
bad--that not a single point can be urged in favour of the practice. The
solitary writer to urge anything in favour of the custom of
child-marriage is Sir Denzil Ibbetsson, who asserts that in the Western
Punjab, where child-marriages are exceptional, immorality and assaults
upon women are commoner than in the Eastern Punjab, where
child-marriages are the rule. Those who strongly disapprove of
child-marriages, point more particularly to the fact that when a
girl-child is married to an adult man, she often receives mechanical
injuries in the act of intercourse; and they contend, in addition, that
child-marriage is injurious to the offspring. For, by child-marriage, we
obviate any possibility of sexual selection within the limits of a
particular caste, inasmuch as persons are bound together in marriage
whose defective constitution and inferior mental endowments may not
become apparent until long after marriage, and yet the couple, tied to
one another for life, will continue to procreate an inferior stock. But,
in this connexion, it must not be forgotten that in India puberty is
attained far earlier in life than it is in Western Europe.

Having dealt with the premature development of the sexual life, a few
words must now be allotted to the consideration of an abnormally late
awakening of sexuality. This latter phenomenon must, unquestionably, be
regarded as a morbid manifestation. In the course of my experience, I
have