Home & People THE SOVIET FAMILY Women demanding help as well as love
"A Strange Woman” is a recently made two-part Soviet film by the prominent film director Yuri Raizman.
Yevgeniya Sheveleva, aged 35, leaves a seemingly well-established and happy family because she falls in love with another man and thinks that further life with her husband is now wrong.
Then she leaves the man she loves because she realises that they have
different notions about love and, consequently, about life.
Yevgeniya is prepared to live by herself but, realising that she may cause her son to grow up coldblooded and selfish, she decides that, whatever else may happen, she will take care of him.
“A Strange Woman” is the latest of a series of films in which their makers try to analyse something about which sociologists lr>.ve been arguing for a Idg time now — the emancipation of the Soviet wr nan in the
sphere of emotional and family relations. It has also been a subject of lively discussion in the press. Not long ago, for instance, the youth newspaper, ‘‘Komsomolskaya Pravda,” published a number of readers’ letters under the general title: “Modern Woman: What Is She Like?” Equality between men and women in every sphere of life, proclaimed six decades ago, has led to
From YEVGENI POZDNYAKOV in Moscow
equality between the sexes in the field of production and education. In fact, statistics show, that Soviet women of the present generation are on average more educated than men of their age.
An immutable principle of “equal remuneration for equal work,” introduced by the revolution, provides many women with the opportunity of earning an income no smaller than that of their husbands.
This and many other factors certainly explain why women have started placing increased intellectual and moral demands on the men they love. It is only natural that, materialised in the family, these demands may give birth to differences, and even conflicts. Sociologists say that lately wives have more frequently initiated divorces than husbands. Whereas in the past wives
brought themselves to divorce only alcoholic husbands who bullied the family, at present they, like Yevgeniya Sheveleva in the film “A Strange Woman,” tear off the bonds of marriage if they fail to find understanding and love in their spouses.
More and more frequently wives are protesting against their husbands’ backward views and inherited habits. This is particularly true of the problems connected with the distribution of home chores and the upbringing of children. With their educational background, the majority of Soviet married women cannot imagine a happy life without socially useful work.
Traditionally, however, working women have to roll up their sleeves and set to work again when they return home from an
office or a fa tory — cook-
ing, washing, deanin; taking care of the chiluren. If their husbands refuse to help, these home chores can prove a heavy burden for a woman.
Sociological studies show, however, that in no more than 30 per cent of urban families can the wife count on her husband’s assuming half the duties at home. As a rule, the husband’s share is much lower than that of his wife, if he does anything at all. “In old times when Adam tilled the soil while Eve spun yarn, everything was clear. Now that Adam and Eve till the soil together, Adam rests while Eve still has to spin yarn,” one woman said in a letter to the “Literaturnaya Gazeta.”
The Soviet sociologist Victor Perevedentsev believes that the root cause of the difficulties experienced by the young family at present lies in the fact that the family in general is living through a transitional period from the patriarchial model in which the husband is the complete and indisputable head, to the oiar'.hiai model in which the spouses will be equal.
“This transition,” he says is very difficult because men are unwilling to ‘yield their position,’ while women do not wish to tolerate their erstwhile inequality any longer.
Women are rioting. And they are certainly right to riot.” In coming out against the backward views of their husbands, wives rely on the advanced ideas of society which have emerged as a result of the revolution and have been codified by law. Article 53 of the current Soviet Constitution says that
“spouses are complete'y equal in their matrimonial relations.” Nonetheless, much time will have to pass before spuses enjoy approximate equality as far as sharing their responsibility for home chores is concerned. The achievement of this goal is certainly being helped by the numerous measures which are being
taken to reduce the time spent and the effort made in fulfilling home duties. Even now, more than 13.5 M children of preschool age are staying at kindergartens and nurseries while their parents are at work. The task for the next few years is to provide every couple that wants to send its chidren to pre-school establish-
ments with an opportunity of so doing. Alongside State-given assistance and public support, demographic factors are coming to the rescue of women. Experts say that in the near futute an “overproduction of bridegrooms” is imminent. According to the 1970 census, 87 girls were born in 1963 for each 100 boys
born in 1960, and 85 girls were born in 1966 for each 100 boys born in 1963. In future it will be easier for women to choose their husbands. Certain researchers claim that in the 1980 s Soviet women “will have a happier family life from the very beginning than their elder sisters had.” — Novosti Press Agency.
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