A Social Study of the Russian German 39 
The distribution of the Russian Germans according to sex 
shows a normal, stable population. Males comprise 51.0 per 
cent., and females 49.0 per cent., of the total number of persons. 
This. comparatively equal proportion of the sexes is another evi- 
dence of the family character of this immigration. The few 
married males who are from Russia without their families, and 
a small number of young men from the rural districts attending 
school in Lincoln, account in part for the slight excess of males. 
The city as a whole shows 49.7 per cent. males and 50.3 per cent. 
females, an excess of females in every age period from ten to 
forty-five. 
The comparatively equal proportion of the sexes among the 
Russian Germans insures the establishment of homes and the 
normal increase of this element of the population through birth. 
It tends to retard assimilation by checking intermarriage, but this 
is well for both the immigrant and the community because a too 
sudden change cannot be other than superficial. On the other 
hand, it permits early marriages to which the people have been 
accustomed, and lessens impure living and criminality which might 
otherwise result. 
The tendency to establish homes, encouraged by the favorable 
age and sex distribution of the Russian German population, is 
shown by an analysis of their conjugal condition.** The Russian 
German males show a larger percentage of single persons over 
fifteen than do the females, while the latter exceed in each of the 
other three divisions. While normally about one half a popula- 
tion is married, the Russian German males show 76.3 per cent. 
and the females 80.0 per cent. The smaller proportion of males 
among the widowed (1.2 males as compared with 4.0 females) 
shows the universal fact of their greater tendency to remarry; as 
does also the smaller percentage of divorced males. When the 
comparison is extended to the other groups in the table, it shows in 
every item the greater tendency of the Russian German to marry, 
to remarry, and to stay married. 
37 The statistics for Lincoln and for the United States are taken from 
the Thirteenth Census of the United States, 1910, 599, 149. 
165 
