SLFK 212, March 16, 2004
Before break finished up first go through the Russian wedding
Isolated basic steps of same
Pointed out peculiar features like laments
In US, people are supposed to cry at weddings, but this is because they are happy and not because they are sad
Wedding is supposed to be the bride's DAY, the most wonderful and glorious day of a woman's life
Various commemorative things go with wedding: album, photos
When I was growing up, marrying well was the best thing a woman could do in terms of establishing her status
For a man, status was a job and money
For a woman, status was money and often came through marriage
Even now, according to your survey, women are seen as more interested in getting married then men
Financial benefits go more to female than to male in cases of divorce
Man usually pays alimony, child support
Things in Ann Landers about spinsterhood
Single women are NOT attractive
If you are married and divorced, not that much of a stigma any more
But never finding someone who would want you enough to marry you …
Russian material
It is the man who is more interested in marriage than the woman
Man gains more financially
Woman's family gets a bride price, which is not a big deal
Man's family gets another able-bodied member
They get worker and mother of the next generation
If you are a woman, once you are married, you do not go back
WWII and cases of early widowhood
Woman stays with mother-in-law
The 2 build a house, as in the case of Baba San'ka
If the young woman remarries, it is with permission of her in-laws
When you are a new wife, you are the low woman on the totem pole
Lower than the daughters, even if they are younger than you
Until you contribute a child to the family
Having a child makes you a full family member
Even change in kin name from nevesta > snokha
The negative meaning of nevesta
Animal names derived from this kin term
With all of this being true
Woman does NOT want to wed
Wants to stay single as long as possible
Though staying single too long might make you a spinster and then you are in deed doo-doo
Family is THE social welfare institution in the village
It was not officially so in the Soviet era, though it might as well have been for practical purposes
It is definitely so now.
So, woman walks a fine line
Back to attitude toward marriage is very different and man more interested in it than woman, at least in traditional setting
Notice other reversals
The debutante parade of sorts shows off the MEN
The bachelor party is for the BRIDE, not the groom, though it is not a raucous blowout, but a cryfest
I think that attribution of sexual desire is also different
Women are thought to be more interested in sex than men
Men want their food and booze
Women want sex
The various jokes
Recall the space symbolism and the funeral symbolism
Woman moves into a man's household and "dies" from the point of view of her household of birth, perhaps because of ideas connected to motion in space
Moving is like death
Punishment by exile
What happens if a man moves into his wife's household?
This does happen, though rarely
It is avoided, if at all possible
But what if a family has all girls?
Then, one of the girls is married to a man who moves in with the family
Again, this is so special and unusual a case that it has a special name
The person who moves in is called a pryimak
Chance for a man to move up in the world, as was the case with Did Vasyl' and Baba Polia
If wedding marks an extreme transition for a woman and not much of a transition for a man because she moves and he does not
What happens in the case of a pryimak
The idea that the woman should "die" from the point of view of her household of birth is so strong that what happens first is that the groom undergoes an adoption rite
He becomes like a son to his bride's family
Passing between the legs of the mother-in-law to be
Crawling through her shift
After that he is fed baby food for a while - like a day
Then the wedding is conducted pretty well normally
Though obviously some of the movement in space stuff cannot be done because the bride is not going anywhere
Tends to be a smaller and less elaborate wedding
Another indication of gender roles in wedding ritual is the wedding of the dead
Wedding is so important that, if you die unmarried, your funeral is celebrated like a wedding
Wedding gown (or the special dress)
Ring - of wax or of gold
Hil'tse
Korovai
The whole thing celebrated more like a sad wedding than like a funeral
The young man who courted the woman accompanies the coffin
Though afterward free to marry another
Beliefs that a person MUST marry to have a complete life
Or else will come back and haunt the living
Will not rest in the afterlife
This is especially true of women - reasons: Wedding is THE transition for them, like funeral is for a man
Story of the couple in Velykii Khutir
Custom breaking down?
Some people blame the old wedding of the dead practice
Some blame the photo placed in the coffin
This is supposedly the standard way to curse a person, whether at a death wedding or not
Old Believer Video
Why is the treatment of men and women at marriage so different?
I gave one explanation - motion in space is very important
A human being is supposed to be born into a home and die in that home
If another sort of death occurs, you need special ritual - like the towel for soldiers killed in battle
Motion is often treated like death
The treatment of recruits
Russian travelers - there aren't any
Famous Russian explorers are people name Radloff and Bering as in Bering Strait
Famous novels contrasting stay-put Russian to go-and-get-them German - Oblomov
Mendicants are special people who have a special relationship to god and the dead
Ordinary people just don't do this unless there is a special, often spiritual, need
Suspicion or itinerant merchants
So, woman moves at marriage and …
Another explanation, more popular in Russia and Europe than here
One reason is that it is closely related to Marxist theory of succession of society types
Theory goes like this:
Slavs and other peoples in this area were once matriarchal
They lived in a communal society without marriage or with group marriage
They owned property in common and did not care which child was related to whom because inheritance was not an issue
At some point there was a switch in social structure, from matriarchy to what we have now, which is a patriarchal system
One reason may be that property becomes important and you need to know which kid is yours so that child can inherit your goods, property, land
When this happens, marriage is instituted
You are basically trying to limit the sex partners that a woman has so that you know who the father of her children is
A whole bunch of evidence fits with this
Women lament at marriage, talk of lack of freedom
Because once they were free and it is marriage that makes them not free
Issue of property in a wedding
Recall examination of bride = examination of groom's property
Rusalka beliefs - problem with her is precisely that she has a child outside of marriage, something she is not supposed to do
She tries to get a man to come live with her, as women did before marriage was instituted? But this no longer works - man drowns
Switch from nomadic to sedentary life
Tie to soil
This gets us back to the importance of motion that I gave
Matriarchal society supposedly also has goddess worship and LOTS of goddess or at least female figurines found throughout this area