The Economics of the Russian Village

by Isaac A. Hourwich

Households.	Korotoyak.		Nizhnedevitzk.
	Percentage of male hands (of any age) taking to jobs.	Percentage of families separated 1878-1887.	Percentage of male hands (of any age) taking to jobs.	Percentage of families separated 1878-1887.
With 1 adult male worker	52	44	67	44
With 2 adult male workers	39	31	47	40
With 3 or more adult male workers	36	24	34	28

The rate of separated families increases with the percentage of wage laborers. It is by wage laborers that most of the households of the modern type (with one adult male) have been started, while within the patriarchal household about two-thirds of its labor forces are applied to farming.

The dissolution of the old household was of the greatest economic consequence, parcellation of the soil being its necessary result:

Classes and Districts.	Percentage to the total of households.	Average membership of 1 family.	Adult male workers to 1 family upon an average.	Households.				Families separated from 1877 to 1887.	Landholding (dessiatines).
				Without adult male workers.	With 1 adult male worker.	With 2 adult male workers.	With 3 or more adult male workers.		To one household upon an average.	To 1 adult male worker upon an average.
	Per cent.			Per cent.	Per cent.	Per cent.	Per cent.	Per cent.
Korotoyak:
Tenure, less than 5 dessiatines	14	4.0	1.0	12	80	7	1	46	4.1	4.2
Tenure, from 5 to 15 dessiatines	50	5.3	1.5	3	55	34	8	38	10.5	7.1
Tenure, from 15 to 25 dessiatines	25	9.1	2.1	1	27	40	32	31	19.7	9.3
Tenure, above 25 dessiatines	9	13.5	3.1	. .	9	25	66	24	35.6	11.6
Total	98	7.4	1.7	5	46	30	19	36	14.2	7.9
Nizhnedevitsk:
Tenure, less than 5 dessiatines	17	4.6	1.1	9	74	13	4	50	3.7	3.3
Tenure, from 5 to 15 dessiatines	51	6.7	1.6	3	50	37	10	41	10.3	6.5
Tenure, from 15 to 25 dessiatines	23	9.9	2.2	1	24	38	37	33	19.4	8.5
Tenure, above 25 dessiatines	8	15.0	3.4	. .	7	21	72	24	36.6	9.2
Total	99	7.8	1.8	4	44	32	20	39	13.5	7.2

We notice that the greater the percentage of separations during the period from 1877 to 1887, the smaller the average plot per family and per worker, and vice versâ. About one-half of the households whose plots are the smallest, are those who have separated in the course of the last ten years and have as a rule only one worker. On the other hand, the largest plots, absolutely and relatively, are held by the compound families of the old stamp, of whom only about one-quarter have undergone division during the last decade.[100]

Furthermore we find a certain percentage of the village community absolutely without any land: Thus we have—

	Per cent.
In Ranenburg	4
In Dankoff	4
In Korotoyak	1.7
In Nizhnedevitsk	0.5

This new class of the peasantry owes its existence solely to the division of the family:

Landless households.	Korotoyak.	Nizhnedevitsk.
Without male worker	260	69
With 1 male worker	58	42
With 2 male workers	12	6
With 3 or more male workers	5	2
Total	335	119
Above the age of 60—
Males	31	8
Females	68	14
Difference, females	37	6
In the age from 18 to 60—
Males	113	68
Females	382	149
Difference, females	269	81
Males between 18 and 60—
With physical defects	6	7

It might be supposed that landlessness was connected mainly with old age, widowhood, orphanry, and bodily defects (blindness, lameness, etc.). Yet such, what we may call, biological phenomena will carry with them consequences that vary according to the social institutions of the time. The patriarchal family was not destroyed by the death of one of its male members. His widow and orphans belonged, in some analogy with the Roman family, not to the husband, but to the household as a whole. It was no unusual thing for a widowed daughter-in-law to be given in marriage to an outsider with the purpose of introducing a new male worker into the coöperative body in the place of the deceased member. Similarly the other members remained until death in their family. It was only after the dissolution of the patriarchal household that the feeble and helpless began to figure as a distinct group in village life.