THE CAUSES OF THE DECLINING BIRTH RATE 153 



Were we to compare the number of children under five per thou- 

 sand married women in cities and in rural districts, the latter 

 would still show a preponderatingly larger number of children. 

 The fact that there are more children in relation to the number 

 of women in the rural districts than in the cities is very strong 

 evidence that the former have the higher birth rate. This con- 

 clusion is in general corroborated by what is known of the birth 

 rate in cities where there is a tolerably adequate birth registra- 

 tion. The proportion of women in the United States who are or 

 have been married is greater in the country than in cities in the 

 ratio of 64.6 to 57.8 according to the last (1910) census. This of 

 itself would naturally tend to increase the fecundity of rural dis- 

 tricts. On the other hand, the proportion of women of child- 

 bearing age is greater in cities than in the country, the per cent of 

 white women of 15-44 years in the country being 21.27 per cent 

 and in cities 25.4 per cent, and among negroes 22.5 per cent and 

 31 per cent. 



Cities usually contain a greater number of bachelors and 

 spinsters than are found in the rural districts. Commenting on 

 this peculiar circumstance Weber remarks: "A number of expla- 

 nations may be offered for such an apparent contradiction. For 

 one thing, rural emigration takes away most of the bachelors and 

 maids, leaving in the country a population with a large proportion 

 of married people; and at the same time that marriages are 

 comparatively infrequent, social circumstances may be such as to 

 impel rural couples to go to the cities for the performances of 

 marriage ceremony. Moreover, in many German cities it is found 

 that city young people often remove to a suburb to begin house- 

 keeping in a cottage of their own; the marriage is thus credited to 

 the city, while the census counts the married couple in the sub- 

 urb. The most probable explanation, however, is that city 

 marriages take place at an earlier age than country marriages, 

 where the city marriage-rate is the higher of the two, and that 

 they are dissolved sooner by the relatively high mortality to 

 which males are subject in the city. This would account for the 

 larger number of widows in urban populations. Divorce is also 



