A Social Study of the Russian German 55 
low marriage age, the universality of marriage, and the great im- 
portance attaching to the wedding ceremony in the simple lives of 
the people. The impossibility of concealing their shame in the 
small villages in which they live is a deterrent, as is shown by the 
fact that in Saratow, a city of 200,000 population, where some 
12,000 German colonists live, the number of illegitimate births per 
100 among the latter was 5.8 in 1906; 7.6 in 1908; and 5.3 in 
t912.°° In the villages, public opinion is a most powerful pre- 
ventive. Since marriage in Russia is an exclusively ecclesiastical 
institution, the minister must be appealed to for the ceremony ; 
and if he learns of the indiscretion of the pair the bridal wreath 
is torn from the bride and their disgrace is heralded by their 
being denied a public wedding. The difficulty or impossibility of 
desertion by the father due to the lack of freedom of travel in 
Russia and the consequent necessity of being provided with a 
domestic passport by which he can easily be traced, is a restraining 
influence. The fact that illegitimacy would stand as a bar to 
marriage, in a community where the arrangements are largely in 
the hands of parents and the personal wishes of the contracting 
parties count for little, would also have its subtle influence. 
As usual the woman is the chief sufferer and if she chance to be 
deserted or conceals her paramour, her lot becomes almost unen- 
durable.** Not only is she shunned and despised by her asso- 
ciates, but she is jeered and howled at by the boys of the street, 
who constitute themselves the guardians of virtue, as much to 
their own debasement as to the edification of the accused. This 
custom is transferred to America and prevails in the settlements 
in Lincoln. A sixteen-year-old girl who had fallen victim to 
vice through the public dance hall was being accompanied to her 
home in the settlement on Sunday afternoon by the probation 
officer’s assistant. On their way they passed through the city 
80 Friedensboten Kalender, 1908, 130; I910, 131; 1914, 142. 
31 A writer in the Volkszeitung, a semi-weekly paper published in Sara- 
tow, describes the popular conduct toward such women and _ protests 
against the leniency shown the male culprit in contrast to the pitiless atti- 
tude toward the woman. This is one of the numerous signs that the 
“woman’s movement” is penetrating even one of the most secluded cor- 
ners of the Russian Empire. 
181 
