Dead? Hmm. It seems that this is not at all about Russia. We seem to be fine with traditional values and marriage. Our society is constantly pumped with attitudes about "true family values", "braces" and so on. Traditional ideas about family and marriage are constantly being projected into us. Very, very many in our country still want to get married or get married.
The wedding is our everything. This is part of our cultural code. Gender roles of husband and wife. Children and parenting. Life, home, family. All this determines a lot in us. We, as a nation, as a Russian society, strongly gravitate towards traditional attitudes. They seem to us to be a kind of foundation for our life. The backbone of the basics. Something obligatory and a priori correct. And this is largely why we reflect so strongly when something goes wrong.
And a lot is going wrong now. Never before have traditional marriage and traditional values been in such a deep crisis as now. According to Rosstat, the number of marriages is now at the level of the Great Patriotic War. And for divorces, although there was a rebound after the peak values of the beginning of zero, the numbers are still very significant. “Few marriages - many divorces”: such trends.
For example, here is the data for 2016: 985 thousand marriages and 608 thousand divorces. Significantly more than half of marriages end in divorce. And this is not at all traditional. This is what scares and makes in panic scream at every corner about the decline of morality, the decay of society and the degradation of family institutions.
Divorce is especially frightening. This is the main factor that Russian society reflects on. How to live in a world in which every third marriage falls apart? Those were the blessed times of the USSR, when the divorce statistics were approaching zero, and then off they'd go. Something is wrong with us …
Not with us, you can relax. We are not alone in this matter. Yes, we have our own peculiarities and we will talk about them later, but in general: “less marriages - more divorces” is a global trend. General civilization. Norway, Germany - more than 40% of divorces. And this, by the way, is the highest standard of living. The most developed and prosperous countries in the world. So it's not our low standard of living that matters.
And not even in the fall of morality and the loss of the highest family values. Spain, Portugal, Czech Republic - these are countries where the influence of Catholicism and wedding ceremonies is still relevant. However, it has the highest divorce rates in Europe: up to 60 percent or more of marriages end in divorce.
Something is wrong with us all. We are all in a global crisis of family institutions. Every third family breaks up - you need to learn to admit it. Traditional values are no longer relevant. And it's not scary! That's where they go. Family and marriage have not deteriorated in the 21st century. Everything is exactly the opposite.
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Family and marriage have evolved. A departure from traditionalism and even a departure from nuclearity is a movement forward! The growing number of divorces is an adequate trend. The phenomenon of divorce is normal and correct. We have nothing to fear, we live in a better world than we lived two or three generations ago.
Yes, we have a lot of transition problems. We have to adjust a lot and adapt to new realities, but all this, in any case, is better than stagnation. Progress and change are not easy, fact. New challenges often knock down and destroy destinies. But we will definitely manage. We did it every time and we can do it this time.
And to understand why the current crisis of family values is the right development. Why divorce is normal and correct. We should consider the process of family evolution. How we got to this point where there are fewer marriages and more divorces. Where do these attitudes come from that have such a negative effect on us and make us feel insecure about the future? So what should we do next?
To do this, we will consider three stages of family evolution. They took turns taking turns. Mutually penetrated each other. And now we are in a kind of hybrid transitional phase, combining superstructures of all these types.
The first stage is a traditional large family. Next comes the nuclear family with many children. And finally, our stage from 2019 is the post-industrial family. And each stage in the evolution of the family has its own stage in the development of society. The traditional family is an agrarian society. Nuclear is formed when the industrial society comes to replace the agrarian type. Then our 21st century. Postindustrial century. Postmodern. Etc. There are many definitions, because this is not the final phase, we are in dynamic development.
And now, thanks to this, at first glance, unpretentious periodization, we will be able to understand what influences and what forms the modern Russian family. And then where, and by what means she move on.
Let's start with a traditional large family. She's patriarchal. She's wide. She is an agrarian family. Many definitions. This family is of great historical importance. For most of the foreseeable past, it was this type of family that was fundamental and the only one functioning.
Globally. Any agrarian society, and any society before industrialization and industrial revolution was agrarian, and so it formed a traditional family according to the patriarchal type. And the key feature of this type was that the traditional family is primarily an economic unit.
This is an agrarian society. Natural economy. Everything that the family produced with their own hands and made up their economy. It was a kind of firm where everything was subordinated to the economic component. After all, this is the economy of survival. Food, shelter, clothing - all of this was produced within the family or exchanged for what was produced. Only one's own labor determined the possibility of survival. Therefore, all other characteristics of the family stemmed from these initial conditions and needs.
The traditional family was one-of-a-kind. She had a clear hierarchy with the dominant head of the family. The same patriarch who, as a director of a company or a production manager, directed all the processes within the family. And this was an absolutely forced measure: maintaining efficiency through strict control is something that is still practiced in the manufacturing economy throughout the twentieth century and sometimes in the twenty-first. Again, when it comes to the need for clear regulation of production processes.
Another characteristic: the distribution of roles was rigid and traditional. That are also factors of forced control and interchangeability. When all family members should have their assigned role. Someone worker in the field. Someone is a houseworker. Someone is there and there. Someone is in charge, someone is subordinate. One replaces the second. And all this should work as a well-coordinated mechanism with clear roles passing from generation to generation.
The third point: "wide" family, when three generations or more live under one roof. The need for such a wide family was again forced. Then the microdemography factor started to work. Such a family, where there are many members from different generations, it is easier for it to survive in conditions of high mortality, health risks or disability. The family needs to somehow distribute scarce resources, and therefore the factors of widowhood, orphanhood, disability, or one of the sons will be taken to war, or an epidemic, hunger from natural factors, or war is very close: all this can be survived if there is at least some -that kind of contact, and the very microdemographic factor, when there are more options, who can survive and be able to feed the family.
And one more, last point: the stability of roles and statuses. No feelings of falling in love, no manifestations of individual desires were factors for changing roles and statuses. The woman has her place, the man has his. A well-defined statute of a husband or wife. As long as you are the youngest son, you have one status. While you are a child, you have a different status. And there were no options to determine something yourself or change something.
And here we again start from the factors of survival and efficiency in the original conditions. Of course, there were individual indulgences. Of course, someone there fell in love and moved to other families. Someone showed their individuality and tried to live differently. But in the initial conditions of an agrarian society, such liberties were ineffective and did not take root. For example, a “small” family: husband + wife + child, yes, they could live apart, but a little hunger, a little illness and that's it. Literally death for the whole family. From hunger, cold and devastation.
Only this rigid patriarchal structure based on control, on clear roles and statuses, on multiplicity - only it was effective. All other forms just didn't work. We criticize patriarchy, it seems to us excessively cruel, dark, inhuman, but in those conditions of economy and demography, the development of science, it was a natural form and the only viable form. A wide family was part of the community. Community in the parish. And such patriarchal constructions have formed the foundation of our Russian civilization for centuries. The agrarian type of society could function and survive only in this way. And give at least some kind of platform for the statehood of our homeland.
Separately, I would like to talk about children in a patriarchal traditional family. The attitude towards them was not at all what it is now. It was extremely utilitarian. Small labor force, which, if it grows to a more or less adult age, becomes the main labor force.
And that's all.
There was no upbringing, special care, parental affection - all this was not. The child was born, if he survived childbirth, then they hung the cradle somewhere in the center of the house, and whoever had free hands and time, then alternately something was shaken and looked after. No one took a break from business for the sake of crying a child. He didn’t give up everything, as it happens now. The family and relatives did not dance around the newborn. The modern attachment and centricity of the family on children was not at all welcomed.
Children were raised only by passing on some skills in order to further shape their profession and work role. And so, either the very older generations, who were already incapacitated, were engaged in upbringing and care (and this was a rarity because the average life expectancy over thirty did not always pass). Or grown-up children, mostly sisters, who have not yet been assigned to other families. The grown-up boys were already working, and not loafing around with the younger ones.
Why was such a separation from children formed?
First, this is the same work. The family had to work constantly. Everyday. Otherwise in the evening there will be nothing to eat and nowhere to live. Employment 24/7, literally. Secondly, infant mortality. Out of ten children, two or three survived to adolescence. A significant part died in infancy. The first year or two. And not even from the factors of departure, because they also died among the kings and the upper classes. It's just that children get sick often and a lot. The acquired immunity is just being formed. Naturally, there were no vaccinations or antibiotics, so any difficult diagnosis, any widespread infection, any epidemic and hunger - the children died first.
And with such a mortality rate, either each parent will have PTSD and “child loss syndrome”. And this is an endless psychological pit and depression. And then just humanity dies out at once. Because whoever goes to work in the field, everyone will only cry about the death of another child. Or there is adaptation, removal. Formation of a request for the dominant of external factors. Higher power. “God sent, God cleaned up” - that's all. When an individual psychologically relieves himself of the loss of a child and, as it were, relieves responsibility, which allows him to somehow live on. But this is a separate big topic: why, why and how religions were formed.
This is how, for example, one writer describes life in a Russian village.
"An unmarried woman … gave birth every year and, as is usually done in the villages, the child was baptized, and then the mother did not feed the unwanted child, unnecessary and interfering with the work, and he soon died of hunger."
This is the novel "Resurrection". Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy.
Another illustrative example is in the medical notes of Vikentiy Vikentievich Veresaev. This is a doctor, writer, translator, literary critic. His story of the late 19th century: "Lizar".
“- Before, my mournful master, it was better. They lived quietly, they remembered God, and the Lord Father took care of people, appointed a measure for everything. The measure was, the order! War will be declared, and either famine - and clean the people, you see - life has become more difficult; bobies will come - that the people will bite! Know, prepare the Domina! The Lord reduced the person, he pitied the people. And there is no such thing. You can't hear a war, it's quiet everywhere, the fershalih was instructed. So the people grieve over the earth. What has happened, and don't look!
…. If someone's god is good, then he takes care of himself - that means he is reducing the family. Did you hear what they say? Give, Lord, a cattle with offspring, and children with a Primorye. That's how we say it!"
It's creepy to read that from the 21st century, right? For us, children seem to be the main thing. Humanism, when human life is above all. And then "hunger will cleanse the people." A cattle with offspring, and children with a Primorye. Primorets is a pestilence, that is, some kind of disease.
But we must realize that the terrible conditions in which the peasants lived for centuries was a reality to which it was necessary to adapt. And many children - it was not easy. It is a huge challenge to feed them, to keep them in conditions of constant lack of resources.
Hence, the status of a woman was determined. Her sinfulness is everything, including because of unwanted children. Once a year, after any casual sexual intercourse, there was a risk of pregnancy, which means a burden on the family or community. Therefore, there was a censure of fornication. Therefore, special control over sex life. In general, there is an almost pure economy.
Here is another quote about the status of women in the Russian countryside.
“In a patriarchal family, women were viewed primarily as a family worker; the ability to work was often the main criterion when choosing a bride. “Women's labor in a peasant family and farm is terrible, truly terrible,” wrote Gleb Uspensky. "Every peasant woman is worthy of deep respect, because the epithet" martyr "is really not an exaggeration to almost every peasant woman." A woman was made a martyr not only by work, but also by her lack of rights, her dependence on her husband, father, mother-in-law, and the fact that her role as a worker was in constant conflict with her own roles as wife and mother. "In a large family, neither strength, nor intelligence, nor character, - nothing will save a woman from submission and the associated oppression …" (A. Vishnevsky)
Another important factor of discrimination against women, which they do not like to talk about very much, is the so-called dreamer. Sexual exploitation of younger women in broad patriarchal families. And that was almost the norm. The woman, in addition to hard work and severe dependence on her husband, also suffered sexual attacks from older members of patriarchal families. Moreover, the son-husband had no right to be indignant and jealous. Parental dominance and dependence on older generations was so strong that it was quite normal for a “small” family to raise not their own child, but a child from the husband's father.
And now general conclusions on the patriarchal family.
The dominant factor is natural selection. A tough family structure aimed at survival. All that did not help to survive - went away. The most important factor was the stability of the family in the original conditions. Whether it's hunger, war, epidemics. It was hard and within this patriarchal structure there were a lot of problems, but otherwise it was impossible to survive. Some changes in external factors were needed in order to correct this patriarchal structure. And this will only happen with the advent of industrialization.
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But before moving on, you probably have a question. And what are we doing with this village? Why do we focus on the peasant family and its foundations, and not on some philistines or nobles there.
But because we are peasants. Russia is the peasants. According to the census of the late 19th century, out of 1000 people, only 15 nobles, 6 merchants and 106 bourgeois. And 841 peasants for European Russia!
And this is why we are still in the third or fourth generation from the countryside and the peasantry. Our grandmothers and great-grandmothers are from these very patriarchal communities and large families of ten people. And we are still in some way carriers of this culture and this patriarchal superstructure.
And it's okay to admit it. Yes, we are a nation of peasants. Yes, we have the intelligentsia, the bourgeois stratum - this is the minimum representation. Historically, the nobility - 1 percent, and after the revolution, and even closer to zero. The peasantry, patriarchy are our foundation. Our core of foundations, which will have a tremendous impact on us in 2019 too.
This is not good or bad. It's just Russia. Our country and we have no other. And when we think that there is, and that we have something else here as a foundation. When we gravitate only to the upper strata, to something necessarily enlightened, and therefore we jump steps, removing from the equation what we do not like, then immediately there are big problems. Everyone protects something of their own. Everyone is sitting in their corners. Nobody listens to anyone. Each opposes himself to the other. Right away, everyone has "their own Russia, in which it would be desirable to have no opponents."
Not. This is no longer needed. We have a symbiosis here. And these, and those, and peasants, and nobles, and burghers. And the intelligentsia and not so much. Both workers and scientists. And also different national characteristics. And different cultures. And religion. And this will be very clearly seen on the example of the family. We are different and this is our advantage. If we listen and hear each other, we will learn a lot. And something needs to be corrected not by imposing from above, but by evolving from below, when the more advanced simply help, and not humiliate and discriminate.
Now you can move on. Industrial society and how it changed the patriarchal family and agrarian way of life.
Continuation: "From the patriarchal family to the nuclear".
Author: Nikita Podgornov