Jaina Community a Social Survey

Author(s): Vilas Sangve
Publisher: Popular Book Depot Bombay

Page 55

Population
29
20-40 age-group for males (7,421 per 10,000 ) and in the 15-20 agegroup for females (8,650 per 10,000 ).
Further, from the above statement it would be clear that the difference in the proportion of males and females in the last age-group in respect of civil conditions was considerable in the various communities. Of 10,000 males aged 60 and over, 866 Zoroastrians were unmarried, 496 Christians, 331 Jainas and 297 Muslims as against only 186 Hindus. Of widows aged 60 years and over, there were 8,954 per 10,000 amongst Jainas, 8,434 amongst Hindus, 8,037 amongst Muslims, 7,605 amongst Christians and, 6,308 amongst Zoroastrians. In every community the majority of males in the 60 and over age-group were married, and the majority of the females were widows. The disproportion between the married men and widowers in the last age group was least in the case of Jainas, who had 5,497 married males as against 4,172 widowers.
Apart from the fact that the Jainas were an early marrying community one could expect that due to the impact of western ideas, there would not have been married persons upto the age of 10. But from the statement, 34 showing the distribution of Jaina population in the Bombay Presidency by civil condition of 1,000 of each sex and main age-periods from 1881 to 1931, it would be seen that there were persons married as well as widowed in the early age-groups and moreover their number had not been appreciably reduced as was expected in the case of the Jaina community which was considered to be more advanced, well-placed in the economic life and having a high proportion of literate population. Further, in respect of the proportion of widows it would be seen that the Jainas continued to top the list of widows. In Rajputana, where the Jaina population is mostly concentrated, there were 247 widows per 1,000 females. This means that out of four females one female was necessarily a widow. There is not much chan in this regard in recent times. Due to this unusually high proportion of widows, who are effectively debarred from marrying again, the sex composition of the community becomes very unbalanced. The ban on widow remarriage considerably reduces the proportion of females in the reproductive period. Obviously this situation very adversely affects the rate of increase in the Jaina population as compared to the rate of increase in population of