On the Statistics of Second Marriages among the Families of the Peerage

Extract

On a former occasion I had the honour of submitting to the consideration of the members of the Institute of Actuaries some statistics respecting marriages amongst the families of the peerage, from which were deduced tables showing the probabilities of marriage, whether for the first or second time, according to the age of the husband. The subject would, perhaps, have been better fitted for a discussion at a meeting of the Statistical Society, had it not been brought within the range of assurance topics by the avowed object for which the statistics were collected, viz., to throw some additional light on a class of risks which were every day becoming more numerous and important—the class of assurances to protect contingent reversions which would pass from presumptive heirs in the event of issue being born to a present tenant for life. They are now more familiarly known as “issue risks.”