Video: Dowry in peasant families
2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55
According to the peasant tradition, her dowry was recognized as the property of a woman. It was seen as a reward for a family member who left the family forever. Girls began to cook it in the village at the age of 12. The contents of the box ("box") of potential brides were similar.
These are, as a rule, shawls, chintz, lace, stockings and so on. The dowry, together with the "masonry", things (less often money), presented at the wedding, was considered in the village the property of a woman and was a kind of insurance capital for her. Former zemstvo chief (Tambov province) A. Novikov, who knew rural life firsthand, wrote: “Why does a woman have a passion to collect canvases and ponevah? - Every husband will take away money on occasion, i.e. knocks out with a whip or a belt, and in most cases they do not touch the canvases."
The dowry of a married woman belonged only to her and her children, and the husband could not dispose of it without the consent of his wife. The peasant tradition placed a taboo on women's property and was inviolable. Senator N. A. it seized and sold flour given from the Red Cross, then even there, with all this orgy, it was not heard that the police officers and police officers somewhere encroached on the chests of teenage girls"
According to the village tradition, the daughter-in-law, who entered her husband's family, was allowed to have a "soben" ie. separate property. It could consist of cattle, two or three sheep or a heifer, as well as money collected at the wedding. This dowry not only provided her with the necessary clothing, but also acted as a source of at least a small, but income. The funds received from the sale of wool from the sheep and the sale of offspring went to her needs.
In some places, for example in the village. Osinovy Gai of the Kirsanovsky district of the Tambov province, many wives even had their own land, from 3 to 18 acres, and personally spent the income received from it. According to the village custom, the daughter-in-law was assigned a strip of land for sowing flax, hemp, or a share of the family's stock of wool and hemp fiber was allocated. From these materials they made sheets, shirts, etc. for themselves, their husbands and children. Some of the cloth could be sold. The householder had no right to encroach on "woman's earnings", i.e. funds received from the sale of mushrooms, berries, eggs. In the village they said: "Our women have their own commerce: the first - from the cows, - besides what is served on the table, - the rest is in their favor, the second - from flax: flax in their favor."
Earnings from daily work, performed after hours with the consent of the head of the peasant household, also remained at the disposal of women. At her own expense, the daughter-in-law had to satisfy all the needs and wants of her children, since, according to the existing tradition, from family funds, not a penny was spent on her, except for food and outerwear. Everything else she had to acquire herself. A dowry was prepared for the same funds in peasant families. According to customary law, the dowry, after death, passed to her heirs.
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