- Mr. Rense:
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- Here is an article you may find interesting for your
site. It is a 1926 Atlantic article about the Leninist Platonic-style
push to abolish marriage and family relationships in Soviet Russia.
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- The relevance to your site is that, if you read the
article you will see that what are discussed as radical and controversial
changes in definitions and legal treatment of marriage and children in
Soviet Russia sound almost exactly like all the modern-day American liberal
reforms that are declared to be "mainstream" and whose critics
are condemned as "extreme". Note also the apparent existence
of far more real debate and dissent about those proposals in Lenin's dictatorial
terror state than in media-drugged, somnambulent, "bipartisan",
"moderate" modern America.
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- The Russian Effort to Abolish Marriage
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- By A Woman Resident in Russia From The Atlantic
Monthly July, 1926
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- c. 2001 The Atlantic Monthly All Rights Reserved
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- "Free love is the ultimate aim of a socialist
State..."
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- "Men took to changing wives with the same zest which
they displayed in the consumption of the recently restored forty-per-cent
vodka."
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- The question whether marriage as an institution should
be abolished is now being debated all over Russia with a violence and depth
of passion unknown since the turbulent early days of the Revolution. Last
October a bill eliminating distinctions between registered and unregistered
marriages and giving the unmarried consort the status and property rights
of the legal wife was introduced in the Tzik, or Central Executive Committee.
So much unforeseen opposition to the proposed law developed that the Tzik
decided to postpone its final adoption until the next session, meanwhile
initiating a broad popular discussion of the project.
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- Since that time factories, offices, clubs, and various
Soviet organizations and institutions have passed resolutions for and against
the bill, and the halls have not been able to hold the eager crowds that
thronged to the meetings in city, town, and village. One must live in Russia
to-day, amid the atmosphere of torment, disgust, and disillusionment that
pervades sex relations, the chaos, uncertainty, and tragedy that hover
over the Russian family, to understand the reasons for this heated discussion,
for these passionate pros and cons.
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- When the Bolsheviki came into power in 1917 they regarded
the family, like every other 'bourgeois' institution, with fierce hatred,
and set out with a will to destroy it. 'To clear the family out of the
accumulated dust of the ages we had to give it a good shakeup, and we did,'
declared Madame Smidovich, a leading Communist and active participant in
the recent discussion. So one of the first decrees of the Soviet Government
abolished the term 'illegitimate children.' This was done simply by equalizing
the legal status of all children, whether born in wedlock or out of it,
and now the Soviet Government boasts that Russia is the only country where
there are no illegitimate children. The father of a child is forced to
contribute to its support, usually paying the mother a third of his salary
in the event of a separation, provided she has no other means of livelihood.
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- At the same time a law was passed which made divorce
a matter of a few minutes, to be obtained at the request of either partner
in a marriage. Chaos was the result. Men took to changing wives with the
same zest which they displayed in the consumption of the recently restored
forty-per-cent vodka. 'Some men have twenty wives, living a week with one,
a month with another,' asserted an indignant woman delegate during the
sessions of the Tzik. 'They have children with all of them, and these children
are thrown on the street for lack of support! (There are three hundred
thousand bezprizorni or shelterless children in Russia to-day, who are
literally turned out on the streets. They are one of the greatest social
dangers of the present time, because they are developing into professional
criminals. More than half of them are drug addicts and sex perverts. It
is claimed by many Communists that the break-up of the family is responsible
for a large percentage of these children.)
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- The peasant villages have perhaps suffered most from
this revolution in sex relations. An epidemic of marriages and divorces
broke out in the country districts. Peasants with a respectable married
life of forty years and more behind them suddenly decided to leave their
wives and remarry. Peasant boys looked upon marriage as an exciting game
and changed wives with the change of seasons. It was not an unusual occurrence
for a boy of twenty to have had three or four wives, or for a girl of the
same age to have had three or four abortions. As the peasants of Borisovo-Pokrovskoie
bitterly complained: 'Abortions cover our villages with shame. Formerly
we did not even hear of them.' But the women, in self-defense, replied:
'It's easy for you to talk. But if you just tried to bear children yourselves
you would sing a different song.'
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- I was once discussing the subject of frequent divorces
with the president of a village soviet. 'What makes women get divorces?'
I asked him. Just then a girl about eighteen years old entered the room.
'Here is our latest divorcee,' said the president laughingly. 'Ask her.'
I turned around, but the girl was no longer there, and from the window
I saw her running away as fast as she could. I ran after her and finally
caught up with her in the fields outside the village. We sat down on a
haystack and I asked the girl to talk to me frankly, as woman to woman.
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- Tears filled her eyes as she told me that she still loved
her nineteen-year-old husband, but that he had forced her to ask for a
divorce only two months after they had been married. He now thought he
loved another girl in the village and threatened to kill his wife if she
did not leave him voluntarily.
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- I recall another victim of the breakdown of family ties
in the villages, a tall, pale, silent Cossack woman. She was divorced by
her husband after their first child was born. He then married another woman,
had a child by her, deserted both, and returned to his first wife, by whom
he had a second child. The woman was deeply religious, and was tormented
by the thought that her second child was illegitimate, although her priest
assured her that this was not the case, because the Church did not recognize
the divorce.
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- Several peculiar abuses sprang up in the country districts
in connection with the shifting marriage regulations. Many women of light
behavior found marriage and childbearing a profitable occupation. They
formed connections with the sons of well-to-do peasants and then blackmailed
the father for the support of the children. In some cases peasants have
been obliged to sell their last cow or horse in order to settle such alimony
claims. The law has created still more confusion because it is retrospective
in its operation, so that women can claim support for children born many
years ago.
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- Other peasants took advantage of the loose divorce regulations
to acquire 'summer brides.' As the hiring of labor in Russia is hedged
about with difficulties and restrictions for the private employer, the
richer peasants in some districts took to the practice of marrying a strong
girl for the harvest season and divorcing her as soon as the work in the
fields was over.
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- The new sex relations have also raised certain problems
in the cities. During the winter of 1924-1925 some of the older Communists
accused the younger generation, especially the students, of indulging in
too much dissipation, of squandering health and vitality in loose connections;
they blame the girl students for practising frequent abortions. 'You must
be either a student or a mother; under present-day conditions you can't
be both,' declared one mentor to the modern Russian women students. The
latter indignantly replied that love was almost the only cheap amusement
left to them and demanded that they be given at least the same opportunity
for free abortions that factory women enjoy. Moreover, they retorted that
not all the older Communists could serve as a model of pure living.
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- Some members of the League of Communist Youth, an organization
which now numbers between a million and a half and two million young men
and women, regard the refusal to enter into temporary sex relations as
mere bourgeois prejudice, the deadliest sin in the eyes of a Communist.
Some of the provincial branches of the League went so far as to organize
'Down with Shame' and 'Down with Innocence' circles; but these were sharply
condemned as rowdy aberrations in the official report on the activities
of the League at the last Congress of the Communist Party.
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- Both in the villages and in the cities the problem of
the unmarried mother has become very acute and provides a severe and annoying
test of Communist theories. In the early stages of the Revolution the Communists
held the theory that children should be reared and cared for by the State.
But it soon became evident that the State, especially in war-torn and impoverished
Russia, was financially quite incapable of assuming such a heavy burden
of responsibility. The figure of ten thousand foundlings, reported for
thirty-two provinces of the Soviet Union over a period of six months, illustrates
the danger that the present large number of vagrant homeless children may
be swelled because of the inability or unwillingness of parents to provide
for the offspring of temporary connections.
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- The session of the Tzik which discussed the abolition
of marriage as an institution last autumn took place in the famous throneroom
of the Tsars in one of the Kremlin palaces. The gilded walls and ceilings
are unchanged, but the throne has been replaced by a simple wooden structure
serving as a platform. Here round-faced peasant women with red kerchiefs
over their heads, workers in plain dark blouse without tie or collar, commissars
in high boots, mingled democratically and argued with equal ardor.
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- The bill was introduced by the Commissar for Justice,
Mr. Kursky, a large man with tremendous blonde moustaches. He pointed out
that whereas, according to the old law, the wife had no rights in the case
of an unregistered marriage, the proposed law would give her the rights
of a legal wife in holding property and in other matters. Another new point
was that wife and husband would have an equal right to claim support from
the other, if unemployed or incapacitated for work. The woman would have
the right to demand support for her child even if she lived with several
men during the period of conception; but, in contrast to previous practice,
she or the court would choose one man who would be held responsible for
the support. Commissar Kursky seemed especially proud of this point because
it differed so much from the 'burgeois customs' of Europe and America.
In those countries, he said, the husband can bring a friend who declares
that he also lived with the woman, and the latter is then left defenseless.
In the villages, where some continue to live with their parents long after
they are married, the whole family is held responsible if a woman claims
alimony, according to the original draft of the proposed law.
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- When Kursky had finished his report and the floor was
open for discussion, so much heated opposition developed that representatives
from villages and factories spoke for days at a time, and the list of speakers
who wished to be heard seemed to be continually growing larger. The question
which chiefly occupied the attention of the debaters was whether giving
the unregistered wife all legal rights would prevent men from making many
rash and temporary connections, or whether it would simply lead to polygamy
and polyandry.
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- The Commissar for Internal Affairs, Byelobrodov, argued
that the State cannot regard marriage as a purely private affair. It was
his view that stable marriages would better ensure the education of the
children. He asserted that the break-up of the family was responsible for
many of the criminal and beggar children now on the streets.
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- Another speaker objected to the proposed law on the ground
that some women would take advantage of its liberal provisions to form
connections with wealthy men and then blackmail them for alimony. Krasikov,
a high official in the Commissariat for Justice, contended that it would
be most difficult to establish whether people had actually lived in marriage,
and drew the conclusion that the law against polygamy would become a dead
letter. One debater put the question in more picturesque fashion: 'You
want to turn Russia into one huge marriage, where everyone will have married
everyone else.'
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- A working woman from Kostroma, with a shawl over her
head, added her voice of general chorus of opposition. 'In our factories,'
she said, 'you notice something very unpleasant. As long as a young man
doesn't participate in public activities he respects his wife. But as soon
as he moves up a little, gets a little more education, something comes
between them. He leaves his wife with a child, lives with another woman,
and brings poverty and misery to both. I ask the working women to pass
a law that will stop the practice of having many husbands and many wives.'
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- Mrs. Gypova, a peasant woman from Kursk Province, insisted
that men and women must not be permitted to live like gypsies, continually
changing their mates. The children suffered too much. 'Many husbands who
lived peacefully with their wives for twenty years suddenly begin to cry:
"We have freedom now. Give me a divorce." Unless some firm limit
is placed on frequent marriages and divorces we shall be discussing this
question at every session and never get good results.'
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- The opposition to the proposed law seemed to centre around
four points: (1) that it would abolish marriage; (2) that it would destroy
the family; (3) that it would legalize polygamy and polyandry; (4) that
it would ruin the peasants.
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- It soon became clear that the bill could not be passed
at the autumn session, and a resolution to postpone further action on it
until the next session was adopted. About two weeks later a mass meeting
was held in Moscow to discuss the proposal. Krilenko, the Soviet public
prosecutor, who had a very large share in the framing of the bill and is
one of its most passionate advocates, argued that there is neither necessity,
importance, nor even utility in the registration of a marriage. 'Why should
the State know who marries whom?' he exclaimed. 'Of course, if living together
and not registration is taken as the test of a married state, polygamy
and polyandry may exist; but the State can't put up any barriers against
this.
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- Free love is the ultimate aim of a socialist State; in
that State marriage will be free from any kind of obligation, including
economic, and will turn into an absolutely free union of two beings. Meanwhile,
though our aim is the free union, we must recognize that marriage involves
certain economic responsibilities, and that's why the law takes upon itself
the defense of the weaker partner, from the economic standpoint.' Leon
Trotski also pronounced himself in favor of the proposed new law at a conference
of medical workers engaged in maternity welfare work. Trotski stressed
the point that such a law, by giving more protection to women, would make
for the benefit of the country's children.
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- On the other hand, Mr. Soltz, a prominent Communist authority
on legal matters and one of the bitterest opponents of the proposed law,
took a very different view of its probable consequences. His argument ran
somewhat as follows:-
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- 'We now impose the responsibility for the consequences
of loose living on men who are guilty of it, while at the same time we
know that they can't undertake the burden of these responsibilities. Women
don't get a hundredth part of the alimony to which they are entitled by
court decisions because the husbands simply cannot pay. The proposed law
seems to favor women, but it will really work out to their disadvantage,
because even now husbands run away from their wives and wives run vainly
after their husbands and their alimony. Women enter into temporary connections
because they think the law will protect them. We must tell them that only
registered marriage can involve economic obligations; then they will be
more careful. You say we can put alimony defaulters in prison, but if we
tried to do this we shouldn't have enough prisons to hold the guilty. Women
will defend themselves better if they know that they can't rely on our
laws for defense.'
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- Madame Smidovich expressed the opinion that the family
is still needed to fulfill the function of bringing up children and carrying
out other obligations which the State is not yet able to assume. She favored
the law because she thought a woman would be best defended if her rights
as a wife were legally upheld, regardless of whether the marriage were
registered. 'Many applauded Soltz,' she added, 'because they already rejoice
in the idea that if they are only obliged to assume responsibility for
a registered marriage, they can at the same time maintain several other
connections without any responsibility at all.'
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- Madama Kollontai, Russia's foremost feminist leader and
first woman ambassador (to Norway), offered an interesting contribution
to this discussion. She opposed the bill because she did not think women
could collect alimony, especially if their husbands had two families. She
was against registration and altogether in favor of free love. As a solution
for the vexing problem of children she suggested a scheme of 'marriage
insurance,' to be financed by an annual levy of one dollar on every adult
citizen of the Soviet Union. This would provide a fund of about sixty million
dollars a year, enough to provide for all the babies who might be born
as a result of free-love unions. She also remarked that, although the present-day
Russian youth is accused of dissipation and loose living, it is often forgotten
that prostitution has largely disappeared. (In this connection there is
a widespread saying that amateurs spoil the profession.)
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- If opinion on the proposed law is divided in the cities,
the feeling in the villages, where eighty per cent of the Russians live,
is overwhelmingly against it. Recently the official Soviet newspaper, Izvestia,
printed a résumé of peasant opinion in regard to it. Perhaps
the most characteristic spokesman was A. Platov, a peasant from Vologda
Province, who declared:-
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- 'Marriage among the peasants has not yet become a toy
which can be fashioned to-day and broken to-morrow or next week. The new
proposal to have many wives and husbands is considered illegal in the villages.
Responsibility for the sins of one member should not fall upon the the
entire family. Every divorce in the villages brings with it family discords,
feuds, trials, revenge, murder, and ruin. One must take into consideration
the backwardness of the village population, which feels that the new law
will bring polygamy, grief, demoralization, and the dying out of the race.'
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- In Tetushi, a Tatar village, the meeting of the peasants
was described as 'noisy, even stormy.' It began at two in the afternoon
and lasted until the following morning. The meeting registered a unanimous
vote for the registration of marriage. Although disussion is still going
on all over Russia, there seems to be little doubt that the bill, with
certain modifications, will be passed at the next session of the Tzik,
which will be held in the summer. The more important changes in the draft
law, to which the Commissariat for Justice has agreed in deference to the
widespread popular protests and opposition, are as follows:-
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- Unregistered marriage will entail legal rights only in
cases where the parties concerned mutually acknowledge each other as husband
and wife, where it is established before a court that they lived together
and had joint property, either by the testimony of a third party of by
the evidence of their personal correspondence or other documents, where
there was mutual material support or joint bringing up of children.
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- A husband or wife may claim support from the other partner
only for one year if incapacitated for work, and only for six months if
unemployed. (This change was made as a result of numerous suggestions to
the effect that some Russian men are so lazy that they would be glad to
marry working women and remain permanently unemployed if they were thereby
entitled to claim support from their wives.) Preference will be given to
registered marriages in so far as registration will be considered an absolute
proof of marriage.
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- The whole peasant family will be responsible for the
support of the child of one of its members, but the amount given must in
no case be so great as to lead to the ruin of the family.
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- The mere technical details of the proposed new marriage
law would scarcely have excited such a flood of ardent popular discussion
if the whole problem of sex relations had not been in the forefront of
public attention. The discussion simply provided an outlet for the expression
of long-repressed feelings on this subject.
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- The course of the discussion indicated pretty clearly
two outstanding developments in modern Russia's attitude toward the problems
of marriage, sex, and the family. In the first place, there is an unmistakable
reaction, both among the Communists and among the general public, against
excessive loose living. Some of the Communists especially stress the point
that a comrade who spends too much time in love affairs cannot fulfill
his duties to the Party and the proletariat. There is a tendency among
Communist writers now to decry excessive preoccupation with sex as a symptom
of bourgeois decadence. Among the general population and especially among
the peasants there is a keen realization of the difficulties, material
and otherwise, which have come up as a result of a too literal adoption
of the 'free love' slogan, and there is a desire for more stable domestic
relations.
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- In the second place, it is now pretty evident that the
widespread circulation of revolutionary ideas on the desirability of abolishing
the family has not by any means eliminated old-fashioned passions of love
and jealousy. The police records are full of cases, some of them very terrible,
of murders and assaults and suicides committed by women under the influence
of jealousy. One such case may serve as an example. A peasant left his
village wife and began to live with a working woman in the town. The village
wife kept coming and making scenes before the second wife, until the latter,
irritated beyond endurance, poured benzine over her rival, set her on fire,
and burned her to death. Such elemental outbursts of jealousy are condemned
by the Communists as 'relics of bourgeois prejudice'; but they continue
to occur nevertheless, and even Communist women have been known to commit
suicide because their husbands'attentions were diverted elsewhere.
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