A Social Study of the Russian German AI 
only 43 were single at the age of twenty-five, and out of a 
total of 1,523 females in the same age group, only 6 were un- 
married at twenty-five.*® The largest number of married per- 
sons is between the ages of 25 and 35, at the most prolific 
period of life for rearing children. By far the largest num- 
ber of widowed persons is beyond the age of fifty, and it is 
significant that out of 60 widows, 56 are past the age of child 
bearing. The smaller number of divorced males does not signify 
especially that the Russian German women are more addicted to 
separation than the men, but often the woman remains in the 
settlement while the man hides himself in an up-town boarding 
house or in some other locality. Sometimes he has deserted the 
wife, either before or after leaving Russia, and is thus unrecorded 
here. 
The influence of the conjugal condition of the Russian German 
upon crime, suicide, insanity, illegitimacy, and the adult death- 
rate, all of which are decreased among the married, is difficult to 
determine accurately ; but its influence upon the increase of the- 
population is clearly evident. Every condition among the Russian 
Germans in the Lincoln settlements is favorable to a high birth 
rate, even higher than in their former home in Russia. The 
population contains fewer persons in the upper age groups beyond 
the child-rearing period because the old people do not emigrate. 
It is more healthy as a whole because the process of selection 
necessary for entrance into the United States eliminates the phys- 
ically unfit. It contains many raw immigrants, because Lincoln 
is a distributing point for this group who come here direct from 
Russia, and therefore shows the primitive tendency of the 
foreigner toward large families. Finally the abnormally large 
proportion of young married people, showing the universal tend- 
ency toward marriage and the early age at which it occurs, and the 
long duration of married life due to few divorces and constant 
remarriage, produce ideal conditions for a high birth rate. 
89 Something less than a dozen of the forty-three single males are uni- 
versity students living outside Lincoln, and hence not an integral part of 
the city population. 
167 
