A history of marriage, wedding traditions and rituals - in the Presidential Library stock

July 8, 2017, Russia celebrates the Day of Family, Love and Fidelity. There are the electronic copies of rare books that reveal the history of marriage and wedding ceremonies on the Presidential Library website. These editions also reflected the meaning of the same thrust of “family” in its different periods of Russian history.

On this day, the Russian Orthodox Church honors a memory of the favorers of a family and marriage of the holy right-believing princes Peter and Fevroniya of Murom. Peter and his wife so selflessly and wisely built their family life, having raised three children and giving contemporaries an example of mutual devotion, that in 1547 the Russian Orthodox Church canonized them. And the universal values they preach, such as family, love, reliability and morality, are remaining in generations of their descendants. This archetypal family is discussed, in particular, in the book A. Bronzov of 1901 “On the Christian family and any related to it issues” from the Presidential Library stock.

The information about an initial stage of development of marriage could be found in some rare books. In A. Smirnov's study of 1878 entitled Popular ways of marriage is stated: “A notion that a conjugal union does not depend on human arbitrariness, but in advance is determined by fate or divine will, was established between the Slav people already in ancient times: “If someone is destined for the other one, he will be born for it, and there is nothing we can do about it,”” “there is no way to walk or to drive around destined one,” a marriage happens “by the judgment of God.”

With the introduction of Christianity in Russia, the way of inherent to it Christian tradition of the wedding was not recognized right away among the people having for a long time their own centuries-old traditions of marriage. In ancient times, people had the opinion that only boyars and princes should go through the wedding ceremony. Dissolution of marriage was allowed by accepted law, but only as an exception to the general rule: marriage by the national concept is an alliance “for a full due.”

Some rituals, in which a wife’s position is proved as subordinate to the spouse’s, are also described in Smirnov’s book.” In some cases a bride, demonstrating her submission, must to humiliate herself before the same groom's feet; in the others the young man is flogging a young woman; and then it comes, for instance, to the Chernigov Gubernia, he is at the same time saying: “Leave your father’s and your mother’s tempers and take mine.”

The rules were changing over time: old traditions were abolished, and new conditions emerged for getting married. An age restrictions for wishing to marry individuals were introduced at the beginning of the XX century. Information about this can be found in electronic copy of edition by V. Drozdov "entitled “Peasant Law” of 1910 from the Presidential Library stock: “The law allows to marry a men, who is not younger than 18 and not older than 80 years, as well as women who is at least 16 years old and not older than 80 years. The former postulate of the supremacy of the man over the woman also changes: “It is required for a legal marriage that the persons down the aisle should first of all do this by mutual consent, without any enforcement from one side or another.”

The views on the family, on the relationship of a man and a woman have been dramatically changed after the revolution. The author of the 1926-year book The morals and life style of the proletariat in the transition period by E. Yaroslavsky emphasizes that a new type of family is being born, where two comrades jointly participate in the socialist accumulation of moral values and are being a social unit on which the state rests, primarily in the demographic terms. One of the features of the new family is the nonparent care of children.

There are some current scientific researches in the Presidential Library stock, the subject of which is specifically family values. This is, for example, the work of Y. Goncharov City family of Siberia in the second half of the XIX – the early XX centuries. Published summary of dissertation by E. Enchinov focused on Family values of Altaians: transformation of customary law in contemporary culture examines the basics of family traditions of Altai residents. So, for instance, “…the sanction for violation of the norms of customary law affected besides an offender, but also to members of his family, kind. The Altaians say: “Baldary kinchegin checher.” It literally means: “Children unleash the knots of their parents,” that is, the punishment for sin or delinquency can remained to the next generations of the family.” The Presidential Library will continue searching and converting into the electronic format unique materials and documents on the history of the state and its inherent component - the Russian people, who managed to accumulate such an original and diverse experience of family relations.