THE JEWS: RACE AND ENVIRONMENT 



441 



THE JEWS: A STUDY OF EACE AND ENVIRONMENT 



By Dr. MAURICE FISHBERG 

 NEW YORK CITY 



II. Marriages. 



ONE of the most important causes of the low birth rate of the 

 Jews is their low marriage rate. Only about fifty years ago an 

 unmarried Jew was very rare in Europe, while an old maid was hardly 

 to be met with in the Ghetto. They then followed closely the rab- 

 binical ordinances : " It is the duty of every Israelite to marry as early 

 in life as possible. Eighteen years is the age set by the rabbis; any 

 one remaining unmarried after his twentieth year is said to be cursed 

 by God Himself. Some rabbis urge that children should marry as 

 soon as they reach the age of puberty, i. e., the fourteenth year. A 

 man, who, without any reason, refuses to marry after he has passed 

 his twentieth year is frequently compelled to do so by court." x 

 These Talmudical ordinances are not observed to-day by the bulk of 

 European and American Jews, and their marriage rates are much 

 below those of the christian populations among which they live. 



Taking first statistics of the crude marriage rate, i. e., the annual 

 number of marriages per 1,000 population, we find in every country 

 in Europe, where data are available, that the rates for the Jews are 

 lower, as can be seen from the following table : 



Country. 



Algeria 



Germany 



Prussia 



Bavaria 



European Russia 

 Warsaw, Poland 



Fioumania 



Hungary 



Bohemia 



United States 



No. of Marriages per 1,000 Population. 



It must be emphasized that even these figures do not give an ade- 

 quate idea of the low marriage rates of the Jews, because the Jewish 

 population contains a smaller number of children and larger proportion 



1 ' Jewish Encyclopedia,' Vol. VIIL, p. 347. 



