Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - First part - II. The Swedish People - 3. National Characteristics. Moral and Social Conditions - Social Conditions, by Theophil Andersson, Ph. D., Actuary at the Board of Trade, Stockholm - Moral Conditions
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has never been proofread. / Denna sida har aldrig korrekturlästs.
146 II. TH B SWEDISH PEOPLE.
The census records from earlier times — which claim our
admiration from many causes — afford us an opportunity of placing the
following summary before the reader:
Percentage of Families: In 1805. In 1840. In 1855.
Who had more than enongh to live upon... 2’96 9*86 13’75
Who had just enough..........................................................25 74 62 74 67 06
Who had less than enough ..........................................54 81 22 S8 15’98
Who required entire support................... 16 49_5 68_3"27
Total LOO 100 100
Though it is impossible to attach any very considerable importance
to the figures in the above table, and that naturally so, when the
method by which they were arrived at is taken into consideration, yet
it is also inconceivable that the change, in general, to which they bear
witness, should be altogether delusive — for that to be the case, indeed
the differences in the figures are too great, and the regularity in the
course of progress they indicate is too strongly marked.
For recent times figures of this character are lacking; that
prosperity has not, however, ceased to increase is amply evidenced by the
large increase in national wealth of which another section in this
work treats.
Moral conditions.
When social science wishes to examine into the moral condition of a
people, it must, as is well known, content itself to a very great extent
with the study of negative indications. Apart from the criminality,
and the phenomena in connection with the temperance question —
phenomena that will be dealt with in special sections in the following
pages — some facts will be given here concerning the number of
illegitimate births, and other data derived from the statistics of
population or of medicine, which will serve to throw light upon general and
private morals, in the more restricted meaning of this word.
The frequency of illegitimate births, which is certainly not the
only or even the safest measure of the moral condition of a nation,
but which, in any case, illustrates one side of it, forms on the whole,
one of the dark sides of the social life of Sweden, even if those
conditions are far from being as unfavourable as people often make out.
The frequency of illegitimate births is usually expressed by the per cent of
the total number of births. If viewed from the point of the morality of a
nation, this frequency, however, ought rather to be compared with the number
of middleaged unmarried women. To every thousand unmarried women and
widows between the ages of 20/45 years, the yearly total of mothers giving birth
to illegitimate children, in Sweden during different periods since the year 1760,
and in other European countries during the period 1871/80, has been:
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
