Extra-marital relationship and attitude to it in a Russian village of the Altai Region in the second half of 19th - first half of 20th centuries

This article shows how the Russian tradition considers the general perception of extra-marital relationship, as well as its ethnographic specificity, multiplicity and dynamics. Premarital sexual relations were considered blameworthy in the peasant community of the most ethnic-cultural groups. The system of norms, which regulated the interrelation between sexes at youth village gatherings, formed negative attitude towards unfaithfulness. In the youth circle, parallel relations were criticized much more than the change of a partner. According to the conception of the most Russians of the Altai Region, a young woman was to preserve ''innocence'' till marriage. Young men did not have to meet such requirements. The Russians of the Altai Region considered virginity to be one of the main virtues of a bride during the observed period. The issue of the virginity preservation was a public category. Gradual transfer to the independent choice of a marriage partner in the first third of the 20th century lightened the perception of this issue. In case of seduction or cheating by a young man, a young woman would be guilty and in disgrace. She would be given a status of a wanton girl and considered to be the one to blame by villagers, especially if a child was born out of wedlock - ''suraz''. On the male part, absence of sexual relations before marriage was considered as respect to a girl, and offer of intimacy might be a test of her moral stability. The attitude toward husband's love affairs was more liberal, than toward wife's cheating. There was a concept that a woman must have only one sexual partner - her husband, otherwise it would be considered a sin. Informants state the facts of adultery as real but exceptional cases. Field materials are full with stories about humiliations and beatings of women, which were accused of or caught when cheating. Old believers had the strictest punishments for the adulterer. Unfaithfulness often happened because of long absence of a partner at home and also due to the fact that marriages at parents' pleasure were common. There was prostitution in the villages of the Altai Region, and single women were the source of its existence. During the research it was concluded that in the conception of the Russian peasants of the Altai Region extra-marital relations were considered not only as a negative deviant behavior, but also as an animal, which is not limited by cultural bounds, as a motion, a road out of the system of sexual life prescribed by marriage. The further life scenario of a person, who made a mistake, depended on the ethnic-cultural belonging and personal factor. Attitude towards premarital relations was a bit milder than to adultery. Female sexual behavior was controlled and evaluated stricter than the male one. In the first third of the 20th century there was a tendency of transition of extra-marital relation control from a public category to the private one. Consequences of the World War II intensified this tendency.

Keywords

Authors

References