Family Law

Abstract

Abstract Prior to the 1917 October Revolution matters of marriage and divorce were left to the canon law of each religious denomination. A religious marriage ceremony was essential, and certain restrictions were imposed on the marriage of Christians with non-Christians or pagans. The State had been content to accept the practices of each religious denomination and give effect to their ecclesiastical judgments.1 The Bolsheviks, intent upon breaking the authority of the Church, secularized marriage and divorce even before formally legislating upon the separation of Church from State and of school from Church. The family in its bourgeois manifestation, as an economic and legal entity based on the inequality of spouses and the dependence of the wife and children upon the husband, was to be transformed into a free association founded on the free will of its members. How precisely that transformation was to be realized proved to be a lively subject of debate in the early post-revolutionary years. Some urged a rapid transition to collective housekeeping and State-reared children. In the end more responsible heads prevailed.