Peasant marriage in nineteenth-century Russia

Population

Volumn 59, Issue 6, 2004, Pages 721-764

  Avdeev, Alexandre ^a   Blum, Alain ^b   Troitskaia, Irina ^a  

^a MOSCOW STATE UNIVERSITY   (Russian Federation)

^b INSTITUT NATIONAL D'ÉTUDES DÉMOGRAPHIQUES   (France)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CULTURAL TRADITION; FAMILY STRUCTURE; MARRIAGE; NINETEENTH CENTURY;

EURASIA; RUSSIAN FEDERATION;

EID: 33750734668     PISSN: 16342941     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/3654894     Document Type: Article

References (39)

1. John Hajnal, "European marriage patterns in perspective", in David Glass and D.E.C. Eversley (eds.), Population in History, London, 1965, pp. 101-143
2. John Hajnal, "Two kinds of pre-industrial household formation systems", in Richard Wall (ed.), Family Forms in Historic Europe, Cambridge, 1983, pp. 65-104.
3. Peter Laslett and Richard Wall (eds.), Household and Family in Past Time, Cambridge, 1972
4. Peter Laslett,"Characteristics of the western family considered over time", in Peter Laslett (ed.), Family Life and Illicit Love in Earlier Generations, Cambridge, 1977.
5. Frédéric Le Play, Les ouvriers européens, Vol. II, pp. 47-69, Tours, A. Marne, 1879.
6. Steven L. Hoch, "Famine, disease and mortality patterns in the parish of Borshevka, Russia, 1830-1912", Population Studies, Vol. 52, 3, 1998, pp. 357-368.
7. Peter Czap, "Marriage and the peasant joint family in the era of serfdom", in David L. Ransel (ed.), The Family in Imperial Russia. New Lines of Historical Research, University of Illinois Press, Urbana, Chicago, London, 1978, pp. 103-123
8. Peter Czap, "'A large family: the peasant's greatest wealth': Serf household in Mishino, Russia, 1814-1858", in Richard Wall (ed.), Family Forms in Historic Europe, Cambridge, 1983, pp. 105-151
9. Steven L. Hoch. Serfdom and Social Control in Russia. Petrovskoe, a Village in Tambov, Chicago University Press, 1986.
10. Jerome Blum, Lord and Peasant in Russia from the Ninth to the Nineteenth Century, Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1961.
11. The vochina is a collection of lands and of peasants bound to these lands, inherited through the direct patrilineal line, belonging to a single landowner and managed by a single administrator. In the rest of the article, we systematically translate this term by "estate". The Counts Sheremetev possessed a large number of vochinas.
12. The appendix gives a detailed description of these sources and, particularly, of any gaps in them.
13. The duration of service in the imperial army changed several times between 1699 and 1874. Until 1793, soldiers enlisted for life; between 1793 and 1851, service lasted 25 years, and between 1851 and 1874, it was reduced to 15 years. In peacetime, 5 to 7 men aged 15 to 35 were recruited for every 1,000 taxable men; in wartime, this rose to 70 recruits for every 1,000 taxable men. In 1874, recruitment reform led to the creation of compulsory draft, affecting all men as they reached the age of 20. Lots were drawn for 20% of them, and the other 80% went into the reserve. The duration of service was 15 years, with 6 years of active service, and 9 in the reserve.
14. For the history of the decrees and other decisions leading to the creation of these sources, see A. Avdeev, A. Blum and I. Troitskaia, "Démographie historique de la Russie", Histoire & Mesure, 1993, VIII- 1/2, pp. 163-180.
15. This source was first used to estimate mortality, and is presented in Alain Blum and Irina Troitskaia, "Mortality in Russia during the 18th and 19th centuries. Local assessments based on the Revizii", Population: An English Selection, 9, 1997, pp. 123-146.
16. Often different from those in the revisions. We will not deal with this issue in the present article, however.
17. Quoted from K.N. Shchepetov, Krepostnoe pravo v votchinakh Sheremetevyh (Serfdom in Estate of the Counts Sheremetev), Moscow, 1947, p. 272.
18. RGIA, f.1088 op. 15, d.1, 1.33-34.
19. RGIA, f. 1088 op. 15, d.462,1. 32
20. RGIA, f. 1088 op. 15, d. 462 "O vypuske v postoronnee zamujestvo iz Vyhinskoï vottchiny v 1851 godu" ("Departures from the Vihyno estate during the year 1851 for reasons of marriage").
21. The couple's place of residence is always that of the husband's father.
22. Prohibitions of marriage between kindred extended to the 7th degreeor biological kinship; they also applied to relations by marriage and to spiritual kin (godfather and godmothers, in the descending line).
23. Unfortunately, during the period of reform, there are gaps in the marriages registers of the three villages under study, and this makes it impossible to measure the speed of the reform's impact.
24. With the exception of inhabitants of the Caucasus, where the ages were not altered.
25. Persons over the age of sixty years wishing to marry had to acquire a dispensation, and marriage over the age of eighty was forbidden. Finally, the Church was opposed to marriages between spouses with too wide an age gap.
26. According to the 1897 census, among the rural population, the average age at first marriage was 21.5 years for women and 23.3 years for men. A century later, in 1989, it was 20.6 and 22.2 years respectively.
27. S.V. Pakhman, Obychnoe grazhdanskoe pravo v Rossii. luridicheskie ocherki (Common Law in Russia, Legal Essay), volume 2, 1877, p. 38.
28. Iu. Lotman, Pushkin. Biografiia pisatelia. Stat'i i zametki 1960-1990. « Evgenii Onegin ». Komentarii (Pushkin. Biography of the author Articles and notes 1960-1990, "Eugene Onegin "), 1997, pp. 618-619.
29. p. Czap, « Marriage and the peasant joint family in the era of serfdom », in David L. Ransel (ed.), The Family in Imperial Russia. New Lines of Historical Research, University of Illinois Press, Urbana, Chicago, London, 1978, p. 113.
30. In a later work, P. Czap considers such marriages to be rare, and only random events, brought on by rural economic conditions: P. Czap, "'A large family: the peasant's greatest wealth': Serf household in Mishino, Russia, 1814-1858", in R. Wall (ed.), Family Forms in Historic Europe, Cambridge 1983, p. 120
31. on this subject, see also Mark Tolts and AnatolyVichnevskij, Evoliutsiia bratchnosti i rojdaemosti v sovetskiï period (Evolution of marriage and fertility during the Soviet period), in Leonid Rybakovski (ed.), Naselenie SSSR za 70 let (The Population of the USSR during the Last 70 years), Moscow, 1981, p. 79.
32. The model of waiting-time periods is traditionally called upon to explain the age at marriage distribution, but basing the explanation on different premises. See Manual X: Indirect Techniquesfor Demographic Estimation. New York, United Nations, 1984, p. 11.
33. In the period studied here, the Orthodox Church allowed divorce for reasons strictly defined by law, usually after authorization from the Holy Synod (the supreme religious body in Czarist Russia). The following grounds were accepted: -one of the spouses sentenced to loss of all rights and exile in forced labour for life. To divorce in such a situation, it was not obligatory to apply to the Holy Synod, as the representative of the diocese (eparkhiia) could grant permission; -adultery; -physical incapacity to live as a couple, noted after three or more years of life together, as long as this incapacity was a natural one and had not begun during the course of the marriage. -absence of one spouse for more than five years; -decision of the spouses to enter monastic life. In the Vishniaki parish registers during the period 1815-1918, a single case of divorce is recorded; the divorcee is a Russian Army colonel, and the grounds for divorce are not specified. As there was no specific register for divorces, this record was entered in the part of the register assigned for marriages.
34. Jacques Houdaille clearly demonstrates this when he compares the seasonality of marriage before and after the French Revolution. See Jacques Houdaille, "Un indicateur de pratique religieuse: la célébration saisonniere des mariages avant, pendant et aprés la Révolution française (1740-1829)", Population, 33(2), 1978, pp. 365-380.
35. In other words, the couple lives in the husband's village, and usually in the family of the husband's father.
36. For further details on family structure, see Steven L. Hoch, Serfdom and Social Control in Russia. Petrovskoe, a Village in Tambov, Chicago University Press, 1986
37. Alexandre Avdeev, Alain Blum and Trina Troitskaia, "Family, marriage and social control in Russia. Three villages in the Moscow region", in M. Neven and C. Carpon (eds.), Family Structures, Demography and Population. A Comparison of Societies in Asia and Europe, University of Liège, 2000.
38. In particular, Aleksandr V. Chaianov, The Theory, of Peasant Economy, Homewood, III., 1966, American Economic Association.
39. Alain Blum, Irina Troitskaia and Alexandre Avdeev, "Family, marriage and social control in Russia - three villages in Moscow region", paper presented at the AAASS conference, Boca Raton, September 1998.