To look into the life of the ancient Russian population, and in such a side hidden from prying eyes as family life, is both interesting and useful from a scientific point of view. But it's hard to do that. As far as the few sources allow, we will try to find out what the family and marriage were like in the times of Kievan Rus. In the Russian Middle Ages, there are two main types of families with transitional stages between them. A small family consisting of spouses and their children who had not yet married lived in a separate small dwelling, had its own farm and was the primary production team. Along with it, there was also a large family, or "rod", as sources call it. This family consisted of elderly parents, their sons and wives, and grandchildren. A small family stood out from a large one. Its appearance was caused by an increase in labor productivity and sufficient profitability of a small farm. But the small family proved less resistant in the struggle against the forces of nature, in social clashes with more affluent and strong families, as well as with the power of the emerging feudal state, which imposed tribute, judicial fines and duties on the population. The role of a large family in ancient Russian society is not entirely clear. Members of a large family were bound together by common political and property rights, for example, inheritance of extortionate (without direct heirs) property; the right to punish a murderer (this right was then taken away by the state authorities). A large family was exogamous: marriages were forbidden between its members, even second cousins. Members of a large family did not necessarily live under the same roof. It is difficult to trace the role of this family as a production team. In this capacity, it was, obviously, primarily where the population who moved from the old agricultural territories to new ones, forest ones, was initially forced to develop these lands in large collectives. Then again, small families prevailed.

In addition to the small and large family, there was a larger social group, which often acted as a defender of the old system and, as it were, a rival of the emerging feudal state. It was a free neighborhood community-an organization that included large and small families living in one or several villages. At an early stage of its development, such a community, represented by its senior or elected representatives, had power over the families that were part of it, and had a number of important administrative and judicial functions. But this continued until the princely power, and then the church, expropriated these functions one by one. The norms of family law of the Ancient Russian state regulated relations within small and large families, as well as the relations of family members with the community and the state. With the development of the class system and the strengthening of the early feudal state, new social groups emerged alongside the old ones, which became well-known already in the feudal period of history. A medieval person was an integral part of a certain social group, outside of which he had neither rights nor duties. The basis of family and marriage law of the XI-XII centuries. they made up the norms that emerged in the relationship of the family with the community and the state that was being formed back in pagan times. Even then, in the Kiev and Pereyaslavl lands, monogamy won, and marriage by stealing the bride became a relic, preserved only in the form of a rite. Archaic marriage norms at that time still existed in less developed areas - the forest parts of Russia, in the basins of the Upper Dnieper, Pripyat, and Oka, where the remnants of the primitive communal system were stronger. Borrowed from Byzantium, the Christian church, rich in traditions, after its official establishment in Russia at the end of the tenth century, trying to adapt to local conditions, itself partially changed and relied on the norms that it found in Russia. By the middle of the XI century, as a result of this interaction of ancient pagan norms and Christian ones introduced here, the foundations of ancient Russian family and marriage law were formed, which were partially recorded in 1051-1053 in a special code known as the "Charter of Prince Yaroslav on Church Courts". In the XI - XIII centuries, a number of norms of family and marriage law were reflected in the princely codes - Short and Lengthy editions of Russkaya Pravda, in chronicles, in parchment and birch bark letters.

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The Church in Russia appropriated the right to approve marriage and promoted that its conclusion is one of the divine sacraments incomprehensible to man. However, the church registration of marriage - "wedding" for a very long time could not displace the former customs of "wedding". In the 1080's, a contemporary noted that only boyars and princes get married, while ordinary people still arrange weddings with dancing and music .1 The Church was forced to put up with this, and the ecclesiastical courts, faced with the need to decide cases of divorce and inheritance, practically recognized such unmarried marriages as legal. The wedding was preceded by an engagement, a conspiracy; it was accompanied by a meal at the bride's parents, and the obligatory dishes were pie-loaf and cheese. The groom's refusal to marry after collusion was considered a disgrace for the bride and was compensated by a sum of money, to which the church authorities also added a fine in their favor: "If the cheese is cut because of the girl, and then they do it wrong, for the cheese a hryvnia, and for insulting her 3 hryvnia, and what is lost, then she will to pay, and to the metropolitan 6 hryvnias "2, - we read in the "Charter of Prince Yaroslav".

The marriage conditions were quite complicated. Marriages between relatives were forbidden. The church refused to marry people who were relatives even in the sixth generation, that is, marriages between second cousins were not allowed. Only their children could marry among themselves. The marriageable age for men was considered 15 years, for women less: 13-14. However, these norms were often not observed. Ministers of the Christian church in Russia, as well as adherents of other religious cults, preached the exclusivity of their faith and forbade marriages of Christians with non-Believers, as well as with unbaptized "from our language", that is, local, Old Russian pagans. Early feudal marriage law in Russia did not know any linguistic and state differences. As for the conclusion of marriages between persons belonging to different social groups, the corporate nature of society made them a rare exception, although such marriages were not formally prohibited. In fact, marriages between representatives of the nobility (princes and boyars) and representatives of the social lower classes (peasants and slaves) were not recognized as legal and were not sealed by the church. In this case, peasant women and slaves acted as concubines, "menshitsy" - younger," second " wives. The marriage of a free man to a slave without a prior agreement with her master, provided for by the Voluminous Truth (XII century), led to the loss of his freedom and enslavement .3 As for the marriage of a free woman with a slave ("serf"), then, according to later sources, it led to the same thing. This class rule partially prevented marriages between freemen and serfs.

According to the legal norms that existed in Russia after the adoption of Christianity, it was possible to enter into no more than two marriages. Even the death of one of the spouses in the second marriage did not give the survivor the right to enter into a third marriage. A clergyman who blessed such a union, even in ignorance, was threatened with defrocking. The monuments of the XIV-XV centuries reflect the amendments that state and church authorities were forced to make to these strict rules. For example, in Novgorod, children from the third and fourth marriages were recognized as heirs, and the third marriage was allowed as an exception if "someone is young and has no children from either the first marriage or the second"4 . Probably, similar amendments had to be made before.

A certain role in the conclusion of the first marriage was played by the parents of the bride and groom, who even had the right to force their children to marry. The "Charter of Prince Yaroslav" prescribed punishing parents only in cases where they, by forcibly forcing marriage or prohibiting it, thereby caused an attempt to commit suicide or suicide: "If a girl does not want to marry, and her father and mother give her away by force, and she does something to herself, the father and mother are responsible to the metropolitan." Parents in relation to their children had not only great rights, but also many responsibilities. "Charter of Prince Yaros-

1 " The Russian Historical Library published by the Archeographic Commission "(RIB), vol. VI St. Petersburg, 1908, stb. 18.

2 "Monuments of Russian Law". Issue 1. Moscow, 1952, p. 269.

3 Ibid., p. 119.

4 "Monuments of Russian Law". Issue 2. Moscow, 1953, p. 165; RIB. Vol. VI, p. 273.

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lava " provided for the responsibility for providing for children and arranging them in life. Failure to marry a daughter was punishable by a fine in favor of the metropolitan: "If a girl from the great boyars does not marry, the parents pay the metropolitan 5 hryvnias of gold, and the lesser boyars-a hryvnia of gold, and ostentatious people-12 hryvnias of silver, and a simple child-a hryvnia of silver." According to ancient Russian law, if there were heirs in the family-sons, the daughters did not receive inheritance, but went to depend on their brothers: "If there is a sister in the house, then the inheritance is not due to her, but the brothers will marry her off, giving her what they can as a dowry"5 . Since in Byzantine church law such a norm on the responsibility of parents to their children is unknown, it can be assumed that the ancient Russian law of pagan times was recorded here, according to which the community or other authority charged parents with ensuring the marriage of their daughter.

Wherever the Old Russian family lived, in the southern forest-steppe and steppe strips or in the northern forest areas, the main source of its existence was the work of a man. The woman actively helped run the household, and also gave birth and nursed numerous children, many of whom, however, died in childhood. Regulation of childbearing was almost nonexistent, although folk "potions" that caused miscarriage were already known. When asked by a priest who was taking confession, "Would it be a sin if a woman threw away a baby while working?" the twelfth-century bishop of Novgorod replied: "If it is not the result of a potion , there is no penance for it." 6 Given the high mortality rate of children and the relatively short life span of peasants (usually up to 40-45 years), almost unlimited childbearing was the most important source of population growth. The social system did not provide any means of subsistence for people in old age, and their maintenance fell only on their children.

Pagan traditions allowed for regulated premarital affairs. But the birth of a child to an unmarried woman was regarded by the church as a "civil death" of the future bride: "If a girl living with her father and mother has a child, or a widow, then, accusing her, transfer her to a church house", a monastery-type institution. The same thing was done in relation to an unmarried woman who will have a child.

Most of the family's movable property was owned by the husband. The wife did not share her husband's rights to the property acquired in their joint management. However, she did have a portion of the property she received as a dowry. Dowry is a fairly early social phenomenon. It will arise during the transition to a class society, when the large family is already becoming obsolete, but marriage is not yet considered as a stable and difficult-to-dissolve institution, as it has become in a class society. Dowry-property that included clothing, household items, and other things that the bride received from her parents and brought to the groom's house-was a kind of guarantee for her existence outside the future husband's household: the bride entered with this property into a new family even if the old marriage was dissolved or her former husband dying. After the wife's death, only her own children retained the right to inherit her dowry. The formation of private peasant ownership of land in ancient Russia was significantly delayed where the traditional collective ownership was strong-the rural community, which hindered the process of property differentiation and class formation in the countryside. Women of privileged classes - princesses, boyars-could be the owners of villages, even cities, such as the widow of Prince Vladimir Vasilkovich (XIII century)7 .

There were mutual maintenance obligations between the spouses. Neither the husband nor the wife had the right to leave each other if one of them was seriously ill: "If the wife has a serious illness, or blindness, or a long illness, then she cannot be left: neither can the wife leave her husband "("The Charter of Prince Yaroslav"). Here, obviously, we are not talking about a formal divorce, after which the spouse had the right to remarry, but only about leaving the spouse without help. The right to resolve intra-family issues related to the relationship between husband and wife, as well as the wife's relationship with the world around her, as well as the right to punish misdemeanors,

5 "Monuments of Russian Law". Issue 1, p. 118.

6 RIB. Vol. VI, p. 58.

7 "Monuments of Russian Law". Issue 2, p. 27.

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it belonged to her husband. "The Charter of Prince Yaroslav" pursues punishment from the church authorities only in cases when a man insulted or beat someone else's wife. Similar actions against his own wife were regarded not as a crime, but as the fulfillment of a duty. The rural community, the princely tiuns, the church, and the city administration bodies were subject only to the husband, but not to the wife. True, the church had great moral power through a confessor-a priest. But metropolitan and episcopal officials intervened in conflicts where one of the parties was a woman, only at the conclusion and dissolution of marriage.

Divorce of spouses in Ancient Russia was allowed. It was preceded by a trial involving witnesses. In the early times, at least in the XI - XII centuries, when church weddings were not yet commonplace, the authorities sought to preserve not only the ecclesiastical," legal " marriage, but also the one in which the church did not take part and which the church condemned: "If the husband breaks up with his wife of his own free will and they are married, then the metropolitan is 12 hryvnias, if not married, the metropolitan is 6 hryvnias." Several reasons for a legal divorce were recognized. The Novgorod rules of Bishop Nifont (1180s) name two of them: the wife's infidelity or the husband's physical inability to marry. Infidelity of the husband did not serve as such a basis and was only punished by penance. Divorce was also allowed, with a penance imposed for three years, "if it is very bad, so that the husband cannot live with his wife or the wife with her husband, "and also when the husband"begins to steal his wife's clothes or drink". The appearance of the Old Russian integral code of "norms of" dissolution " (divorce) dates back to the second half of the XII-beginning of the XIII century. He was included in the extensive editorial board of the "Charter of Prince Yaroslav". It found a place for divorce only because of the misdemeanor of the wife. Thus, the husband had the right to leave his wife in the event of her adultery, confirmed by witnesses (this was considered as moral damage to the husband); in the case of communication of the wife with strangers outside the house without the husband's permission, which was a threat to her (and, consequently, his) honor; for her attempt on the husband's life or complicity in such an attempt (failure to inform the husband about it); when participating in the robbery of the husband or complicity in such a robbery. These are the norms known in Byzantium.

As for the divorce" due to the husband's fault, then, according to later records, the wife could leave her husband if he slanderously accused her of infidelity, that is, he could not prove it with witness statements. The husband's attempt on his wife's life also served as grounds for divorce. What did they do with the unauthorized dissolution of a marriage and the conclusion of a new one that was not approved by the authorities? In this case, the second marriage was considered invalid. And the fate of the first marriage depended on who exactly was the active party in its dissolution: the husband who took the second wife was obliged to return to the first and pay a fine to the metropolitan; the very fact that the husband left his wife was not a legal basis for divorce. The size of the fine" depended on the social status of the family. In addition to the fine, according to the archaic norms of the XI century, the boyar was obliged to reimburse his wife a large amount "for shame "(for insult). If the wife left for another person, then her new husband was considered responsible for this violation, not she (because she was not sufficiently competent), but her new husband. It was he who paid the metropolitan the" sale " (fine). Such a woman did not go back to her first husband: it was just a case of a legal divorce due to her fault. It was transferred to the church house. The articles of the "Charter of Prince Yaroslav" do not speak about the rights of ex - husbands as a result of restoring "order", but both (the second - after penance), apparently, could enter into new church marriages. As for children, there is no information in the monuments of that time that their interests were taken into account when deciding on divorce.

The family and marriage law of the Old Russian state is the right of an early class society, in which there was an active process of feudalization, which covered an increasing number of community members, who previously depended only on the supreme state authority. As we can see, this rule included many local pre-Christian norms that did not contradict the class system. The further development of feudal relations in Russia led to significant changes in family and marriage law.

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