The reason convicts do not marry is often due to a deficiency in the official records which in each case creates a whole series of tiresome formalities in the bureaucratic manner, which only lead to a situation where the convict who spends a considerable sum on stamps, telegrams and getting letters written for him finally gives up in despair and decides he will never have a legal f^ily. Many con- victs have no official records. Some records contain no reference to the marital status of the convict, or else the data is not clear or it is incorrect. Except for the official records, the convict has no other documents to prove his claims should he need them.'
Information on the number of marriages in the colony can be obtained from the church record books. However, since legal marriage is actually a luxury here, and is not accessible to just anybody, this information can scarcely serve as a determination of the real yearning for married life among the population. They do not get married here when they want to, but when they can. The average age of those getting married is a completely meaningless figure. It is impossible to ascertain the predominance of late or early marriages from the statistics or to draw any conclusions, since family life among the convicts begins long before the church marriage rite and usually the couples who get mar- ried already have children.
From the church records it is evident that during the past ten years the greatest number of marriages have taken place in January. Almost a third of the marriages take place in that month. The increase of marriages in autumn is so insignificant in comparison to January that no similarity can be drawn with our farming districts. Under normal conditions marriages of the free children of exiles always took place at an early age: the grooms were between 18 and 20 and the brides between 15 and 19. However, there are usually more young women between the ages of 15 and 20 than men, the latter having left the island before marriageable age. Perhaps because of the scarcity of young men and to a lesser extent because of economic depriva- tion, an excessive number of ill-matched marriages have occurred. Free young girls, stiJI almost children, were mar- ried off by their parents to older settlers and peasants. Noncommissioned officers, corporals, military medical corps-
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men, clerks and guards frequently got married, but the objects of their felicity were only i 5 and 16 years old.8
Weddings arc modest and dull. They say that in the Tymovsk district weddings are sometimes mcrry and noisy, and the Ukrainians arc especially boisterous. In Alexan- drovsk, whcrc thcrc is a priming press, it is customary among thc convicts to scnd primed invitations before the wedding. Thc convict typescttcrs arc weary of priming prison ordcrs and are cager to demonstratc their art. In appcarancc and tcxt thcse invitations diffcr littlc from those in Moscow. Thc govcrnmcnt donatcs a botde of vodka for cach wcdding.
Thc convicts thcmsclvcs considcr the fecundity in the colony to bc cxccedingly high, and this lcads to constant ridiculc of thc womcn and to various profound observa- tions. Thcy say that on Sakhalin thc vcry climate disposes the womcn to prcgnancy. Old womcn givc birth, cvcn those who werc barrcn in Russia and had givcn up hopc of evcr having childrcn. l1ic womcn arc hastcning to increase the population of Sakhalin and oftcn givc birth to twins. Onc woman in childbcd in Vladimirovka, a middlc-agcd woman with a grown daughtcr, was ccrtain shc would havc twins whcn shc hcard about frcquent births of twins. Shc was most distrcssed whcn shc borc only onc child. "Look somc more," shc bcggcd the midwifc. The birth of twins, how- cvcr, is no morc frequcnt hcrc than in Russia. In thc tcn- year period to January i, 1890, 2,275 childrcn of both scxes wcrc born in thc colony. Thcrc wcre only 26 so-callcd multiplc births.11
All thc somcwhat cxaggcratcd rumors on thc cxccs- sivc fcrtility of womcn, twins, ctc., indicatc that thc convict population has a high intcrest in thc birth ratc and this is considcred of grcat importancc in Sakhalin.
Becausc thc numcrical composition of thc population is subject to fluctuation as thc rcsult of the constant coming and going, and is at thc mercy of chance like the coming and going on thc markctplace, a detcrmination of thc cocfficicnt of the gcneral birth rate in the colony for several years must be considcrcd an unattainablc luxury. It is all the more difficult to ascertain because the statistics gathered by myself and others are extremely limited in scope. Popu- lation figures of former years are unknown, and when I became acquainted with the office records I recognized that the task of digging them out would be like the labor of slaves in Egypt, and would have the most dubious results. Only approximate coefficients can be determined and these will apply only to the present time.
In 1889, 352 children of both sexes were born in all four parishes. Under ordinary circumstances in Russia an equal number of children is born annually in localities with a population of seven thousand.10 In 1889 the population of the colony was plus several more hundreds. Ob-
viously the local birth-rate coefficient is only slightly higher than in Russia generally ( 49.8) and in the Russian districts, as for example in the Cherepovets district ( 454). It may be accepted that the 1889 birth rate on Sakhalin was as large as that of Russia, and if there is a difference in coefficients, it will be quite small and probably of little consequence. Since out of two places with the same birth- rate coefficient the fertility of the women is greater in the place where there are comparatively less women, we may conclude that the fertility of women on Sakhalin is significantly greater than in Russia.
Hunger, yearning for the homeland, tendencies to de- pravity, slavery—the entire sum of unfavorable conditions in penal servitude—do not deprive the convicts of their reproductive capacity. But the high birth rate does not signify prosperity.
The reasons for the women's increased fertility and the high birth rate are: first, the indolence of the convicts, the compulsory housekeeping of husbands and cohabitants owing to the lack of seasonal trades and earnings, and the monotony of life with the satisfying of the sexual instincts often serving as the only means of diversion; and, second, the fact that the majority of women here are of reproduc- tive age. There are probably other remote causes in addition to these proximate ones, but up to the present time they have been inaccessible to direct observation. Perhaps the high fertility should be viewed as a means which nature bestows on the population in order to fight against harmful and destructive influences and against such enemies of the natural order as the small numbers of inhabitants and especially the scarcity of women. The greater the danger to the population, the more children are born, and in this sense the high birth rate may be explained by the unpropi- tious state of affairs.n
Of the 2,275 births in the ten-year period, the greater number were born in the autumn ( 29.2 percent) and a lesser number in the spring ( 20.8 percent). l\lore were born in winter ( 26.2 percent) than in summer ( 2 3.6 per- cent). The greater number of pregnancies and births to date have occurred between August and February, and evi- dently the short days and long nights were more favorable to reproduction than the gloomy and rainy spring and summer.
At present there are 2,122 children on Sakhalin, includ- ing adolescents who became fifteen years of age in 1890. Of these, 644 came from Russia with their parents, while 1.473 children were born on Sakhalin and on the way to penal servitude. There arc five children whose place of birth I do not know. The first group is almost one-third as large as the second. Most of them arrived on the island at an age when they were aware of their surroundings. They remember and love their homeland. Tie second group, those born on Sakhalin, never saw anything better than Sakhalin, which remains their burdensome native land. Doth groups differ significantly from each other. Tius, in the first group only 1.7 percent arc illegitimate; in the second group, 37.2 pcrccnt.12