A Study On The Changes Of Peasants' Marriage And Family After The Russian Serfdom Refor

This paper aims at studing the changes of peasant marriage and family in Russia after the serfdom reform.In this period,from 1861 to the beginning of the 20th century,Russia embarked on the path of modernization.The development of captialism had a great impact on Russian villages,a series of changes also took place in peasant marriage and family behaviors.This paper starts from the changes that occurred in the Russian villages after the serfdom reform,trying to tease out the traditional marital and family situation and analyze the impetus and manifestations of the changes in peasant’s marriage and family.The paper is divided into three parts: preface,main text,and conclusion.In the preface,it elaborates the significance and value of the study mentiond in this paper and provides a review of overseas and domestic research status on the marriage and family of Russian peasant.The second part,main text,is further divided into four sections:The first section is mainly a review of the marital and family situation of the Russian peasantry before the serfdom reform.In traditional rural Russia,peasant marital behavior was characterised by the prevalence of early marriage,the belief that marriage is a major event in one’s life,parents’ opinion is critical for concluding the marriage,insistence on the sanctity of marriage,high rates of marriage and low rates of divorce;in pre-reform rural Russia,the large composite patriarchal family dominated,family members worked together and shared the fruits of labour.The second section is devoted to analyzing the influence of serfdom reform on rural Russia.On the one hand,devout Orthodox faith of the peasant was loosened by education and urbanisation;collectivism and egalitarianism within the rural communes were impacted by commodity economy;new generation of peasants became more individualised,upsetting the balance of closed communes.On the other hand,peasant’s living environment didn’t improved significantly.As Russian capitalism developed rapidly and the commodity economy penetrated the village,migrant workers,who moving between the countryside and the city to earn a living,introduced new lifestyle and way of thinking to the countryside.The third section focuses on the impact of changes in post-reform rural Russia on peasant marital behaviour.As a result of economic conditions,education and military service after the reform,the age of first marriage among peasants has delayed,the marriage rate has decreased,the rate of divorce has increased,the criteria for choosing a spouse,the concept and the principle of marriage were different from traditional.In the fourth section,the changes in the Russian peasant family in the post-reform period are analysed.After the reform,the family size have shrunk.Some changes took place in the economic,reproductive and socialising functions of rural family.The relation of family has developed.In the patriarchal extended family,the unlimited power of the patriarch was limited by the improvement of institution.Women took on the burden of the family due to their economic independence or the permanent absence of their husbands,their position in families and communes has improved.The experience of received education in schools which established by the local authorities or working in the big cities has changed the way of socialization of the children in rural families.The conclusion mainly summarizes the changes in peasant marriage and family after the reform.The changes in peasant marriage and family behavior reflect the development of democratic families and individual individualization.Of course,these changes are limited,more obvious in industrial provinces and places close to cities,and relatively slow in agricultural provinces.