X VII Composition of the Population by Age - Family Status of Convicts - Marriages - Birth Rate - Sakhalin Children
even if the figures referring to the age groups of the convicts were distinguished by an ideal exactitude and were incomparably more complete than mine, they would still be practically useless. First, they are irrelevant, because they arc not based on natural or economic conditions but on juridical theories which have come into existence as a result of the Code on Convicts and the arbitrary actions of the people in the Prison Administration Headquarters. The age groups of the population will change only when a change occurs in their attitude to penal servitude in general and to Sakhalin in particular. This will happen when they begin to send twice as many women to the colony, or when free immigration commences with the completion of the Trans-Siberian railroad. Second, figures pertaining to a penal servitude island with its peculiar living conditions cannot be compared to figures relating to normal conditions in the Cherepovets or Moscow districts. So we find that the very small percentage of old people on Sakhalin does not indicate that there are any unusually grave conditions bring- ing about a high mortality, but merely that in most cases the convicts serve their sentences and leave for the main- land before reaching old age.
At present the age groups with the highest percentage are those between 25 to 35 (24.3 percent) and 35 to 45 (24.1 percent).1 The ages between 20 and 55, which Dr. Gryaznov calls the work-producing ages, constitute 64.6 percent of the colony, which is one and a half times as much as in Russia generally.2
Alas, the high percentage and the surplus of able-bodied persons do not serve as an index of economic prosperity. They only indicate a labor-force surplus, and with their help cities and wonderful roads arc being built on Sakhalin notwithstanding the enormous number of starving, idle and incapable people. The costly building program when set beside the poverty of the working-age groups reminds you of the ancient days when temples and circuses were being built, and there was an artificial labor surplus, while people of working age were starving.
Children up to fifteen years of age are prominent in the statistics: they comprise 24.9 percent of the population. In comparison with similar statistics in Russia,3 this per- centage is small, but it is large for a penal servitude colony, where family life exists under such unfavorable conditions. As the reader will be able to observe, the fecundity of the Sakhalin women and the low mortalif of children will raise the percentage of children still further, pcrhaps as high as the Russian norm. This is all to the g^^ because, notwithstanding all the consequences of colonization, the proximity of children serves as a moral support to the exiles, and more than anything else reminds them of their native Russian villages. Looking after their children saves the exiled women from idleness. There is also a harmful aspect, because the unproductive ages demand large ex- penditures by the population and contribute nothing ma- terially to their lives, and so increase the economic pressure. They intensify the poverty, and so the colony is placed in an even more unfavorable circumstance than a Russian village. When the Sakhalin children become adolescents or reach maturity, they leave for the mainland, and thus the expenses borne by the colony are not reimbursed.
The ages which provide the foundation and hope for a growing colony, if not a real colony, constitute only a small percentage on Sakhalin. There are only 185 persons in the entire colony between the ages of 15 and 20, 89 males and 96 females, which is 2 percent of the total popu- lation. Of these only 27 are natives of the colony born on Sakhalin or along the road to exile; the remainder are new- comers. But even those born on Sakhalin are only waiting for the time when their parents or husbands depart for the mainland in order to leave with them. Nearly all the 27 are the children of prosperous peasants who have com- pleted their scntences and remain on the island in order to have morc capital. Such, for example, is the Rachkov family in the Alexandrovsk settlement. Even Mariya Bara- novskaya, the daughter of a free settler, who was born in Chibisani and is now 18 years old, will not remain on Sa- khalin, and shc will leave for the mainland with her hus- band. Of those who were born on Sakhalin 20 years ago and are now ncarly 2 1 ycars of age, not one has remained on Sakhalin. On Sakhalin there are now 27 persons who arc 20 years of age. Of these i 3 were sentenced to penal servitudc, 7 arrived voluntarily with their husbands, and 7 arc thc sons of convicts, young pcople who have already be- comc acquainted with the roads to Vladivostok and the Amur.4
On Sakhalin there are 86o legally marricd familics and 782 illegal families. These figures sufficiently define the family status of exiles living in the colony. In general, almost half of the adult population enjoys the blessings of family life. The women in the colony are all taken. It fol- lows that the remaining half of thc colony, consisting of about 3,^x1 persons, must be made up on!y of men. This fortuitous ratio, howevcr, is constantly changing. So it happens that when a royal edict announces that a thousand new settlers will be released from prison and settled on homesteads, the percentage of single men in the colony is increased. When Sakhalin settlers were permitted to work on the Ussuriysky section of the Siberian railroad —and this happened soon after my departure—the per- centage decreased. Be it as it may, the development of family bonds is considered to be extremely feeble among the exiles, and the main reason why the colony has been unsuccessful up to the present time is that there is a large number of single men.5 The question arises: why has illegal or free cohabitation become so widespread in the colony? Why, when we examme the figures referring to the family status of the convicts, do we have the impression that the convicts obstinately refrain from legal marriage? If it were not for the free women who voluntarily followed their husbands, there would be four times as many illegiti- mate families as legitimate ones.0
While dictating information for my notebook, the Governor-General called this a "crying state of affairs" and narurally did not blame the convicts for it. Since the people are mostly deeply religious and patriarchal, the convicts prefer legal marriage. Illegally married partners often ask the administration for permission to remarry, but the majority of such requests must be denied for reasons which depend neither on the local administration nor upon the convicts themselves. The fact of the matter is that together with the loss of all his rights, the convict is deprived of all marital rights and no longer exists for his family; it is as though he were dead. Nevertheless, his right to marry in exile is not determined by circumstances resulting from his subsequent life, but by his legally married partner who remained in the homeland. It is imperative that the spouse consent to the dissolution of the marriage and grant a divorce, for only then can the convict be married again.
Usually the spouses at home do not give consent, some from the religious conviction that divorce is sinful, others because they consider the dissolution of the marriage as being unnecessary, an idle gesture, a whim, and this is especially true when both partners are approaching forty. "Does he still think he's of marriageable age?" the wife asks herself, when she gets a letter from her husband de- manding a divorce. "The old dog should be thinking of his soul." A third group of partners refuse because they are afraid of getting involved in such an extremely compli- cated, troublesome and expensive matter as a divorce, or simply because they do not know where and how to begin applying for a divorce.