It is remarkable as showing the wide prevalence of this law, that among the natives of the British possessions in India, also in a considerable part of China, and among the
Calmucks of Tartary, the best means of computation yet furnished us by travellers, yield similar results.
Gradgrind explains to Louisa that the question of her marriage to Bounderby is simply one of "tangible fact" accessible to "practical minds," and that on the basis of statistical evidence drawn from the marital conventions of the native subjects of the British Raj in India, the
Calmucks of Tartary, and most of the population of China, the disparity in their ages can be dismissed as negligible (98-99).