Sociologist questions Russian marriages

Press, 16 July 1983, Page 26

Sociologist questions Russian marriages

NZPA-Reuter Moscow A sociologist has questioned whether marriage is doomed as an institution in modern Soviet society where more than one in three marriages end in divorce. The sociologist, Yuri Ryurikov, said in the Communist Party newspaper, “Pravda,” that the rising number of break-ups suggested that the family unit would not survive unless people were educated to take a different attitude towards family life.

There are between 2.6 million and 2.8 million marriages a year in the Soviet Union, which has a population of 270 million. But with the divorce rate

running close to 950,000 a year, Mr Ryurikov said more than a third of marriages were doomed from the start.

Other statistics published in the Soviet news media have shown that the position is even worse in the European parts of the country, where the divorce rate is closer to 50 per cent. Mr Ryurikov said the social cost was not just hardship for children. Every fourth adult lived alone, usually because of divorce, and this meant there were millions of lonely people. Traditional family bonds, such as reliance on one breadwinner, had withered, but had not been replaced by anything else, he said.

In a comment apparently aimed mainly at Soviet men, he said people tended to expect too much from marriage without being prepared to contribute anything themselves.

Soviet men are frequently accused by women of refusing to take part jn housework and child rearing even though both partners almost invariably go out to work. Mr Ryurikov suggested that young people should be taught to regard marriage more as an equal partnership and should be persuaded that a different approach could make family life a source of pleasure and relaxation rather than friction and strain.