674 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
5 Episcopalians.' This demonstrates from another point of view that emotional religions appeal more to this class than do the severer types, and are more suited to the desires and needs of the class from which the criminal comes. Religion has an important bearing upon the moral sense, which is considered later.
The conjugal condition presents an interesting phase, though not consistent in the various parts of the country. From 86 women in the penitentiaries visited, 50 were married. Out of 49 workhouse inmates measured, 35 were married and 1 1 admitted divorce. The percentage of separations was also large. Many said they were not living with their husbands, though no legal decree had been sought. Of the 1,451 women at Blackwell's Island workhouse, 1,012 were married. The reports of the Sherborn reform prison and of the Cincinnati workhouse show a contrary result. Numerically whether more married or unmarried women are criminals is not so much the important question as is the fact that so large a number of married women are found in prisons. Often these women are mothers. Where it was pos- sible I ascertained the number of children. Among 44 married women recorded there were 48 children, and the 35 married women measured had 28 children. These figures vary with locality, but they show that forces stronger than a home and motherhood are in operation in sending women to penal institu- tions. Among these forces are: The marriage of many of these women does not withdraw them fully from the competitive world, for they must frequently contribute to the support of the family. If their lives have been previously immoral, and often when not so, they frequently marry men whose associates and habits continue, or induce their depravity. Association of ideas, the quality test, the number of separations and remarriages, and the conversations with some of the women reveal a high degree of domestic infelicity. These, together with the condi- tion in which many of the women come to the workhouses, show a harshness of environment and a brutality of associates. This
■ From the annual report of the Joliet penitentiary, where a record of the rehgions is kept, the Methodist and Baptist largely predominate.
