Ukrainian Noble Family of the Early Modern Era in Its Internal Ties and Relationships: Brothers and Sisters

Abstract

The historical anthropological retrospective makes it critical to clarify domineering family relationships in the early modern time. After all, the family is the first social space that largely shapes and educates a person in their attitude to relatives and the surrounding world. Among various family relationships, those between brothers and sisters take an important place. This is especially true of the early modern era, which is characterized by such features of demographic behaviour as numerous remarrying and having a lot of children. Given high mortality rate of that time and according to the law, in the event of the father’s or both parents’ death, adult brothers often became guardians of younger children. The attitude of elder brothers in their guardian status towards their younger siblings greatly influenced the latters’ fates, especially those of sisters.Based on documentary material, this article is the first attempt in the Ukrainian historiography to elucidate relationships between brothers and sisters in the early modern noble family. Using the anthropological approach and the comparative method, the author studies the subject matter by analyzing legislative regulations and their impact on the social practices of the era. Both positive and negative relationships between siblings are revealed by the examples of certain families. It is demonstrated that relationships between close relatives were often influenced by the material factor. Guardian brothers who had in their hands family property – real estate and movable assets – sometimes abused their status and rights, violated legislative regulations and parental will, and mistreated their sisters. Usually, this was revealed when sisters were given in marriage and their brothers deprived them of their dowries, as well as during the distribution of matriheritage, which by law was to be equally shared among children of both sexes. Clearly, such state of affairs could be partially explained by the human factor; however, an important role was played by the then legislation, which prioritized male children in hereditary matters, thus laying grounds for gender asymmetry.