THE JEWS: RACE AXD ENVIRONMENT 



443 



western Europe is there to be found more than four per cent, of bride- 

 grooms under twenty years of age. This is of course due to the 

 numerical predominance of agricultural workers with a communistic 

 arrangement of the village community. The Jews in that country 

 live mostly in cities, are either manufacturers, merchants, etc., or 

 skilled mechanics. Marriage among such people must be postponed 

 till business assures a secure income, or till the individual has attained 

 skill in his trade or profession. The low birth rates of the Jews in 

 Russia (compared with the non- Jewish population of that country) is 

 here partly explained. The later an individual marries, the shorter 

 is the period of the married state, and the number of children to be 

 expected is smaller. In fact the census of 1897 showed that there 

 were five per cent, more unmarried Jews than unmarried christians, 

 as can be seen from the following figures: 



In this connection it is interesting to note that the percentage of 

 protogamous marriages is smaller among the Jews in Russia than 

 among the general population. The marriages between bachelors and 

 maids constituted 83.73 per cent, among the general population and 

 only 80.72 per cent, among the Jews. Second marriages are more 

 frequent among the Jews; and contrary to the almost general experi- 

 ence that widowers are more likely to marry maids than widows, the 

 Jewish widowers in Russia more often marry widows. These peculiar- 

 ities are explained by social customs. 



We can find nothing in the above figures which would indicate 

 any racial influence on the marriage rates of the Jews. In fact the 

 evidence indicates that it is purely a social phenomenon. The Jews 

 in eastern Europe marry earlier and have a smaller proportion of 

 celibates than their coreligionists in western Europe, because the latter 

 enjoy on the average a better social and economic prosperity. When 

 compared with their non-Jewish neighbors in eastern Europe, the 

 Jews have a lower marriage rate, because they have very few agricul- 

 tural laborers, and have, on the other hand, a larger number of mer- 

 chants, skilled workmen, etc., whose birth rate is lower among all 

 peoples in Europe. In oriental countries, like Palestine, Turkey, 

 Persia, Morocco, Algeria, Tunis, etc., where the Jews live under a 

 primitive culture, and are entirely unaffected by any occidential in- 

 fluences, the Jews to-day marry very early. Husbands at fourteen and 



