Prussian Vital Statistics, 1816–1849

We will return to the Russian steppe series momentarily, but first a little detour.

I recently stumbled upon an interesting 1860 article published in the Journal of the Statistical Society of London (available here). The article is the text of a paper that Francis Henry Goldsmid delivered before the Statistical Society of London on 15 November 1859. The paper summarizes data from the “Tables and Official Information Respecting the Prussian States for the Year 1849” (Goldsmid’s translation). Although our immediate ancestors were not part of Prussia during this time, some of the data is still of interest. 

Goldsmid focuses on statistics relevant to birth and to death, and the former is what caught my eye. As expected, the Prussian government compiled data for birth both in the aggregate (across all of Prussia) and for a variety of subsets, both geographical, social (urban versus rural), and religious. It is the latter data that interest us.

The Prussian report provided rates of birth for four distinct religious groups: Protestants, Catholics, Mennonites, and Jews. This division is worth notice in and of itself, since it reminds us that, although we may think of Mennonitism as a part of Protestantism, that was not the case in the Prussian realm, where the Lutheran Church was the dominant branch of Protestant Christianity.

Beyond that general observation, the specific numbers are intriguing. (The midline dots in the table below are decimals.)

The numbers in the table represent the population for every birth in a given year. So, to take 1831 as an example, there was one birth for every 26.54 Protestants in Prussia, one for every 26.52 Catholics, one for every 33.61 Mennonites, and one for every 30.01 Jews. 

Interestingly, the Mennonite birth rate was substantially lower than than that of every other religious group. To put this in more concrete terms, a group of 1,000 Protestants or Catholics in 1831 would have had 38 births that year; a group of 1,000 Mennonites would have had only 30 births. Why the large discrepancy? Goldsmid suggests, “The ordinarily small number of births amongst them appears to be attributable to the circumstances that they live in separate settlements, have no free alienation of landed property, and marry only among themselves” (1860, 205).

In all likelihood, the first and third of his reasons were probably determinative: a preference for endogamous marriage (marriage only within the group), coupled with frequent separation from other Mennonite groups from whom one might select a mate, might have led to a lower rate of (or perhaps a delay in) marriage and thus to a lower birth rate. Perhaps the restrictions on Mennonite ownership and transfer of land contributed, but that seems more a secondary cause than a primary one.

One general point should not be missed: the danger of assuming that our Mennonite experience was shared by all other Mennonites. Many tend to think of Mennonites as fecund and fertile, as inevitably having a large family. True as that may have been for many families of rural Mennonites who earned their bread by farming, it was not characteristic for many of the more urban Mennonites who lived in both the Netherlands and throughout Prussia. We should never lose sight of the social diversity that has always existed within the Mennonite community.

A second table sheds a different light on Mennonite conduct within Prussia.

This table records the number of legitimate births for every illegitimate birth in each religious group. To take 1831 as an example again, there would be one illegitimate birth for every 11.27 Protestants born legitimately, one illegitimate for every 16.48 Catholics born legitimately, one illegitimate for every 108.75 Mennonites born legitimately, and one illegitimate for every 54.21 Jews born legitimately. To be fair, the 1831 number for Mennonites is a bit of an outlier, but the illegitimacy rate for Mennonites is consistently and significantly lower than for Catholics and especially Protestants. 

Goldsmid offers no real explanation for this wide variation, since he observes that the illegitimacy rate varies from region to region and even city to city, with no correlation to religious affiliation. He explains:

The answer to this question does not lead to considerations referring to the nature of man generally … but rather depends on particular circumstances of civilization and society. In this respect the greatest differences exist among different European States: the proportions are so various, that whilst in England it is computed that 1 child out of 20 is illegitimate, the illegitimate births in Bavaria are as many as 1 out of 3 or 4; whilst the children born out of wedlock are in London 1 out of 20, they are in Paris and Vienna fully 1 out of 3, and in Munich years have even occurred when the illegitimate births have been more numerous than the legitimate. It would not be safe immediately and unconditionally to conclude that these proportions represent the degrees of morality of different populations. There may be considerable immorality where there are few illegitimate births, and, on the other hand, the frequency of such births may be increased by external circumstances. No doubt, however, can exist that a large number of illegitimate births is a misfortune for the nation where it occurs. The causes of the variations referred to have been sought in differences of religion (which can scarcely be considered as affording in most instances the real explanation),—in the laws on paternity, which may certainly exercise a perceptible influence,—and in administrative regulations, creating obstacles to the establishment of tradesmen in towns, and to the acquisition, by persons inhabiting the country, of land for cultivation. So far as respects Bavaria, it is highly probable that the large proportion of illegitimate births is, in great measure, due to the last cause, since persons employed in trade, and desiring, but not permitted, to establish themselves, and peasants who are not allowed to acquire land, often live for years as husband and wife, but without wedlock, or, as they phrase it, in “wild marriage.”

In various districts, again, popular opinion, regarding with more or less censure the pregnancy of unmarried women, has some effect in diminishing or increasing the evil; and often, probably, it is to the combination of several different causes that the large number of children born out of wedlock is to be ascribed. In these inquiries the differences between town and country are highly important.

I include that long quote to provide us perspective. As Goldsmid remarks, generally there is no single explanation for any phenomenon. Even if Mennonites in general did require adherence to a higher standard of morality than the Protestants and Catholics, this probably is not the entire explanation of the matter. Perhaps some of the factors that led to an overall lower birth rate also played a role here. Whatever the explanation, we should be reminded that simple explanations often obscure as much as they reveal; human behavior is complex and generally requires multifaceted explanations. This is true for our ancestors Benjamin and Helena, David and Helena, Peter and Sarah, Peter and Margaretha, and Chris and Malinda as much as it is for us today.

Work Cited

Goldsmid, Francis Henry. 1860. Extracts from the Tables and Official Information Respecting the Prussian States for theYear 1849, Published by the Statistical Department at Berlin, and a Few Remarks by the Translator. Journal of the Statistical Society of London 23:201–21.