Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/232

 2l8 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

young men are directed toward an end directly and speedily productive by their labor, the more there is impressed upon them the aspiration toward self-help — the basis of the potentiality of a nation. The greater liberty which Anglo-Saxon girls enjoy is certainly not the smallest factor in the superiority of that race.

The young man is best stimulated to the acquirement of the social virtues necessary in order to create a new family, namely, the labor of acquisition of wealth and the virtue of pre- serving it.

The virtue of saving represents in the economic field the reproductive activity of the physical, in so far as it marks in the individual the capacity of providing, not only for his own needs, but also for those of his growing family.

Among the nations which are distinguished for precocity in marriage we have, in the first place, those of the Slav race ( Russians and Greeks), after whom come immediately the Anglo- Saxon.' Hence we find united the nations which have most elevated the sentiment of individual liberties and of independ- ence, such as the English and the North Americans especially, and those who live under the most absolute despotism, like Russia. In the latter country the precocity is very great, inas- much as 32 per cent, of the husbands marry before the age of twenty. However, as we observe how the marriages occur, we find a very important difference. The Russian does not gain the wife himself. The greater part of the Russian population, namely 90 per cent., belongs to the country, where the greatest number of the inhabitants is devoted to agriculture. For this the precocious marriage is an economic need. The Russian makes haste to give his son a wife in order to have one work- woman more. Wife and husband contribute the unity of a working force, because agricultural labors as practiced in Russia require the cooperation of the strength of the man and of the woman.

The Russian laborer who, without the labor of conquest, and while still beardless, receives a wife from paternal authority,

' A. Marro, La puberta, p. 493.