482 On the Fruitfiilness of Marriages. Bk. ii. 



later. Supposing the births to deaths to be (as 

 stated p. 317) 183 to 100, and the mortality 

 1 in 50, the yearly increase will be about -g^ of 

 the population ; and consequently in 15 years the 

 deaths will have increased a little above -28; and 

 the result will be, that the marriages, compared 

 with the deaths 15 years later, will be as 100 to 

 322. Out of 322 births it will appear that 200 

 live to marry, which, from the known healthiness 

 of children in Russia, and the early age of mar- 

 riage, is a possible proportion. The proportion 

 of marriages to births, being as 100 to 385, 

 the prolifickness of marriages, according to the 

 rule laid down, will be as 100 to 411; or each 

 marriage will on an average, including second 

 and third marriages, produce 4- 11 births. 



The lists given in the earlier part of the chapter 

 on Russia are probably not correct. It is sus- 

 pected with reason, that there are considerable 

 omissions both in the births and deaths, but parti- 

 cularly in the deaths ; and consequently the pro- 

 portion of marriages is given too great. There 

 may also be a futher reason for this large propor- 

 tion of marriages in Russia. The Empress Cathe- 

 rine, in her instructions for a new code of laws, 

 notices a custom prevalent among the peasants, 

 of parents obliging their sons, while actually 

 children, to marry full-grown women, in order to 

 save the expense of buying female slaves. These 

 women, it is said, generally become the mistresses 

 of the father ; and the custom is particularly 

 reprobated by the Empress as prejudicial to 



