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“Whose Wife Will She Be at the Resurrection?”Marriage and Remarriage in Early Modern Russia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Daniel H. Kaiser
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Abstract

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Although historians and publicists have frequentiy criticized the Orthodox Church for its failure to implant in parishioners much religious sensibility, Daniel H. Kaiser argues that the seventeenth-century church was much more successful than critics have contended. Examining litigation over bigamy and remarriage from the Russian north, Kaiser argues that clerics largely succeeded in articulating and enforcing a doctrine that affirmed the sacramental primacy of first marriage. In prosecuting bigamists and tracking down fugitives, church courts showed themselves fully competent to ascertain the facts surrounding marital disputes and then impose decisions upon the principals, many of whom, even while resisting the church's directives, betrayed knowledge of and appreciation for the church's view. Therefore, Kaiser concludes, we need to revise our estimate of the church's effectiveness in regulating domestic life in early modern Russia.

Type
Discussion
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 62 , Issue 2 , Summer 2003 , pp. 302 - 323
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 2003

References

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9. Ibid., 711.

10. Ibid., 712-13. Freeze makes the same point in “The Wages of Sin: The Decline of Public Penance in Imperial Russia,” in Batalden, Stephen K., ed., Seeking God: The Recovery of Religious Identity in Orthodox Russia, Ukraine, and Georgia(DeKalb, 1993), 55 Google Scholar.

11. See, for example, N. P. Rozanov, “Semeinye bezobraziia bylago vremeni,” Russkii arkhiv, 1894, bk. 3:319-21, 327-28. Nina Minenko reports that in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century western Siberia “peasants did not regard marriage as a ‘permanent union'” and that peasant flight and remarriage were common. As the records she cites confirm, however, churchmen regularly investigated complaints about bigamy and attempted to restore partners to their original marriages. Minenko, N. A., Russkaia kresl'ianskaia sem'ia vzapadnoi Sibiri: XVIII-pervoipoloviny XJXv.(Novosibirsk, 1979), 210-13Google Scholar.

12. I know of no complete inventory of such records, but it is clear that similar materials exist for Moscow and other central Russian eparchies. See Protas'eva, T. N., “Stolbtsy Sinodal'nogo sobraniia,” Arkheograftcheskiiezhegodnikza 1959 god(Moscow, 1960), 297 Google Scholar.

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16. RIB6:867-68.59.

17. Ibid., 6:9.17,859.13.

18. Ibid., 6:273, 282; Akty, sobrannye v bibliotekakh i arkhivakh Rossiiskoi imperii Arhheograficheskoiu ekspeditsieiu Imperatorskoi Akademii nauk, 4 vols. (St. Petersburg, 1836), 1, no. 369; Russkii feodal'nyi arkhiv, 5 vols. (Moscow, 1986-92), 3, no. 141 and 2, no. 126.

19. RIB6:273, 279-81.

20. Akty istoricheskie, sobrannye i izdannye Arkheograficheskoiu komissieiu, 5 vols. (St. Petersburg, 1841-43), 1, no. 109. Exactly that fate befell a late seventeenth-century priest who petitioned the archbishop about having presided over the wedding of a peasant whose bride became his fourth wife. According to the priest, parishioners had taken from him the keys to the church and had refused him entry because of his error. Ivan Nikolaevich, Suvorov, Opisanie sobraniia svitkov nakhodiashchikhsia v Vologodskom eparkhiatnom drevnekhranilishche,13 pts. (Vologda, 1899-1917), 5:25Google Scholar. See also ibid., 1:27, 12:18-19.

21. Polnoe sobranie zakonov Rossiiskoi imperii(hereafter PSZ), 45 vols. (St. Petersburg, 1830), 3, no. 1612, arts. 64, 46. Although churchmen long sought to collect wedding fees ﹛venechnye poshliny), exactly when the document authorizing a wedding (venechnaia pamiat’)came into practice is uncertain. S. I. Sirotkin reported that the earliest reference dated to 1488, but few survive from anytime before the seventeenth century. “Neskol'ko novykh dokumentov po istorii brachnogo prava na Rusi za XVII-XVIII w.,” Chteniia v Imperatorskom obshchestve istorii i drevnostei rossiiskikh pri moskovskom universitete, 1896, no. 4, 41. A 1630 wedding memorandum appears in Akty iuridicheskie Hi sobranie form slarinnogo deloproizvodstva(St. Petersburg, 1838), no. 403, and is reprinted in RIB35, no. 375. Many more survive from late in the seventeenth century. See, for example, Pamiatniki pis'mennosti v muzeiakh Vologodskoi oblasti. Katalog-putevoditel', pt. 4, no. 2 (Vologda, 1984), 107-13

22. Shchapov, la. N., ed., Drevnerusskie kniazheskie ustavy XI-XVW.(Moscow, 1976), 87.9-10, 92.6-7, 95.10-11, 100.10-11, 104.10-11Google Scholar. The Short, Rumiantsev, and Tamovsk redactions do not include the article that imagines a woman committing bigamy. Ibid., 111.9,117.9,122.9,129.9, 133.9.

23. In fairness to early modern Russians, their twentieth-century descendants could be every bit as ambitious in multiplying marital alliances. During the 1936 public discussion of the proposed new Soviet constitution, Maria Stepanovna Khudiakova of Cheliabinsk wrote to the newspaper Krest'ianskaia gazetato complain about her own husband's misbehavior. She wrote that her husband had been “married to two other women besides me and they had one child apiece, I found out too late—I was already pregnant, and now he has gotten himself a fourth one and taken off.” Lewis, Siegelbaumand Andrei, Sokolov, Stalinism as a Way of Life: A Narrative in Documents(New Haven, 2000), 198-99Google Scholar.

24. Pushkareva, ed., “A se grekhi zlye smertnye—,“97; Smirnov, Materialy, 47. The text did not articulate a similar provision for a man who acted equally precipitously.

25. PSZ3, no. 1612, art. 63.

26. Pushkareva, ed., “A se grekhi zlye smertnye—,” 97; Smirnov, Materialy, 48, 49. Orthodox priests, whom canon law and tradition required to be married, encountered special difficulties after the death of a spouse. See Debra Coulter, “The Muscovite Widowed Clergy and the Russian Church Reforms of 1666-1667,” Slavonic and East European Review80, no. 3 (July 2002): 459-78.

27. Stoglav, intro. W. F. Ryan (Letchworth, 1971), 85; Emchenko, E. B., Stoglav: fssledovanie i teksl(Moscow, 2000), 283 Google Scholar.

28. Stoglav, 87; Emchenko, Stoglav, 284.

29. Pushkareva, ed., “A segrekhizlyesmerlnye—,“51; Smirnov, Materialy, 61.

30. Pushkareva, ed., “A se grekhi zlye smertnye—, “53; Smirnov, Materialy, 63. On the origins of this text, see R. G. Pikhoia, “Opyt izucheniia rannikh novgorodskikh pamiatnikov tserkovnogo prava (Pravilo ‘Asche dvoezhenets’ i Voproshanie Kirikovo),” Vspomogatel'nye istoricheskiedislsipliny. Sbornik 1(Sverdlovsk, 1974), 9-16.

31. Rossiiskaia gosudarstvennaia biblioteka, otdel rukopisei, f. 173.Ill (Moskovskaia dukhovnaia akademiia), no. 108, fols. 27-27v.

32. Aleksei Dmitrievskii, Bogosluzhenie v russkoi tserkvi v XVI veke(Kazan', 1884), 404.

33. Odintsov, N., Poriadok obshchestvennogo i chastnogo bogosluzheniia v drevnei Rossii do XVIveka(St. Petersburg, 1881), 283-84Google Scholar; Dmitrievskii, Bogosluzhenie, 405.

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35. Puleshestvie v Moskoviiu Barona Avgustina Maierberga, in Chteniia v Imperatorskom obshchestve istorii i drevnostei rossiiskikh pri moskovskom universitete, 1873, no. 3:83. Mayerberg went on to report, however, that divorce was common among the nobility, for whom barrenness proved sufficient reason to dissolve marriages and remarry, he claimed. Ibid.

36. John, [Jan] Struys, The Perillous and Most Unhappy Voyages of John Struys through Italy, Greece, Lifeland, Moscovia, Tartary …, trans.John, Morrison(London, 1683), 146 Google Scholar.

37. Martine, Segalen, Historical Anthropology of the Family, trans. Whitehouse, J. C.and Sarah, Matthews(Cambridge, Eng., 1986), 32 Google Scholar.

38. N. N. Kashkin, “Iz arkhiva Kashkinykh,” hvestiia Kaluzhskoi uchenoi arkhivnoi komissii, 1903,15-16.

39. See, among others, S. G. Helmfelt to Bengt Horn, Narva, 15 September 1671 (enclosure Moscow, 29 August); 17 May 1672 (enclosure Novgorod, 6 May); and 24 May 1672 (enclosure Moscow, 7 May), Bengt Horns Samlung, vol. 11, Riksarkivet, Stockholm. See also Muscovitica, vol. 89, p. 99 (8 January 1674), Riksarkivet, Stockholm. My thanks to Martha Lahana for sharing this material with me.

40. “Povest’ o Sawe Grudtsyne,” in Pamiatniki lileratury Drevnei Rust. XVII vek. Kniga pervaia(Moscow, 1988), 40; Serge, Zenkovsky, Medieval Russia's Epics, Chronicles and Tales,rev. ed. (New York, 1974), 455 Google Scholar.

41. Gaunt, D.and Löfgren, O., “Remarriage in the Nordic Countries: The Cultural and Socio-Economic Background,”in Dupâquier, J.and Hélin, E.et al., eds., Marriage and Remarriage in Populations of the Past(London, 1981), 55 Google Scholar: “It is striking that remarriage was less frequent among the nobility and the clergy than among the peasants.“

42. Arkhiv Sanktpeterburgskogo instituta rossiiskoi istorii (hereafter Arkhiv SpblRl), koll. 117 (Collection of P. I. Sawaitov, Documents of the Vologda Archbishopric), op. 1, no. 1992.

43. Suvorov, Opisanie, 12:234. Similarly, Iakimka Ivanov reported that his wife, having grown ill, took the veil. Ivanov, now thirty, noted that he had been married twice already and petitioned for permission to take a third wife. Church authorities approved his request, so long as there was no other obstacle to his remarrying. Ibid., 5:79.

44. Arkhiv SpblRl, koll. 117, op. 1, no. 1910. There is reason to doubt whether seventeenth-century petitioners were well informed about their exact ages. See Daniel H. Kaiser and Peyton Engel, “Time- and Age-Awareness in Early Modern Russia,” Comparative Studies in Society and History35 (1993): 824-39.

45. Suvorov, Opisanie, 7:105-7. Jennifer Lee Anderson cites a 1687 case that came before the Krutitsk archbishop, according to which a priest was denied permission to marry a man who contemplated his fourth marriage. See Anderson, “Gender Role Construction, Morality and Social Norms in Early Modern Russia” (Ph.D. diss., Ohio State University, 2001), 123. Yet Nina Minenko points out that in western Siberia peasants managed to marry four times at least occasionally, although with what consequences she does not say. Minenko, Russkaia krest'ianskaia sem'ia, 216-17.

46. Suvorov, Opisanie, 9:2-3.

47. Ibid., 9:129.

48. German authorities confronted similar cases, often meting out harsh punishments for wives who did not remain chaste during the absence of runaway husbands. Ulinka Rublack, The Crimes of Women in Early Modern Germany(Oxford, 1999), 214-15.

49. Gaunt and Löfgren, “Remarriage in the Nordic Countries,” 51.

50. Arkhiv SpblRI, koll. 117, op. 1, no. 2086.

51. Suvorov, Opisanie, 11:104.

52. Ibid., 12:234.

53. Ibid.,1:41. See also a listing of similar cases from the 1630s: ibid., 2:4.

54. Arkhiv SpblRI, koll. 117, op. 1, no. 2115.

55. Suvorov, Opisanie, 5:57.

56. Ibid., 10:64-66.

57. Arkhiv SpblRI, koll. 117, op. 1, no. 1179.

58. P. I. Shchukin, Sbornik starinnykh bumag khraniashchiesia v muzee P. I. Shchukina, 10 vols. (Moscow, 1896-1902), 4:53-55. Eve Levin discusses this case as well; see her Sex and Society, 125.

59. Suvorov, Opisanie, 12:1,10. Anderson reports on several similar cases drawn from the archive of the Ustiug Archbishopric; see her “Gender Role Construction,” 121-22.

60. MB 12, no. 180.

61. Ibid. As Anderson pointed out in discussing this case, the husband might have divorced his wife for her adultery; see her “Gender Role Construction,” 100.

62. Arkhiv SpblRI, koll. 117, op. 1, no. 507.

63. Ibid., no. 292. New spouses did not always prove amenable to these decisions, however, as a 1704 case proves. See Suvorov, Opisanie, 7:139-40.

64. Suvorov, Opisanie, 10:102-9. V Iu. Leshchenko refers to the canons of Basil the Great in claiming that in the early eighteenth century Russian churchmen regularly returned to first marriages those who had illegally remarried. Leshchenko, , Sem'ia i russkoe pravoskivie: XI-XIXvv.(St. Petersburg, 1999), 161-63Google Scholar.

65. Shchukin, Sbornik, 4:79.

66. Suvorov, Opisanie, 10:112-13.

67. Ibid., 10:29-30.

68. Ibid., 7:123. Nada Boăkovska and Boris Morozov, in introducing a 1687 divorce memorandum from Nikifor Larionov syn Islen'ev, report that only three such emancipation memoranda survive from the seventeenth century, but the cases cited here are far from rare; see “Razvodnaia zapis’ XVII veka,” Rodina, 1992, no. 10:95. Leshchenko describes a 1716 case, according to which the peasant Ivan Afanas'ev returned home from military duty to discover diat his wife had married another man six years before. The two men agreed to a cash settlement (two rubles and four buckets of wine), in return for which Afanas'ev abandoned all claims to the woman and promised not to petition the authorities for her return; see Leshchenko, Sem'ia, 161-62. According to Minenko, in the early eighteenth century in western Siberia, peasants sometimes accepted significant sums from other men to issue such releases so that their wives could remarry; see Minenko, Russkaia krest'ianskaia sem'ia, 215-16.

69. Arkhiv SpblRI, koll. 117, op. 1, no. 2227 (on reverse of the folios).

70. Ibid., no. 1911.

71. Ibid., no. 281.

72. Suvorov, Opisanie, 1:39.

73. Ibid., 1:32.

74. On the frequency of epilepsy and other ailments in early modern Russia, see Kaiser, Daniel H., “The Poor and Disabled in Early Eighteenth-Century Russian Towns,“ Journal ojSocial History 32(1998-99): 131-34Google Scholar.

75. Suvorov, Opisanie, 11:126-29. Mental illness informed other suits, as well. In one case a Vologda townsman claimed that his wife had fled from him on account of mental deficiencies (po maloumiiu), and in another a slaveowner reported that the wife of a household servant had fled because she was out of her mind (vne uma); he wanted to have the servant remarry. Ibid., 2:45, 11:134.

76. Ibid., 9:18-23. In a case from the 1650s, the wife of townsman Ivashka Filippov requested permission to take the veil, threatening to kill herself if her request were not granted. Ibid., 1:6.

77. Arkhiv SpblRI, koll. 117, op. 1, no. 365. For a similar, much longer case involving a dispute about whether the woman had deserted husband and children for a monastic vocation, see Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv drevnikh aktov, f. 210 (Military Affairs Chancellery), d. 226, Prikaznyi stol., fols. 1-52 and d. 238, fols. 1-19, 60-61.

78. Suvorov, Opisanie, 11:31.

79. Ibid., 7:85-86.