RUSSIA'S MARRIAGE LAWS

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 10, 13 January 1927, Page 15

RUSSIA'S MARRIAGE LAWS

NEWLY ADOPTED CODE RECOGNISESTHE FAMILY AND RIGHTS OF WIVES FORMER SYSTEM ABANDONED. The gilded Throve room of tlie Kremlin Palace at Moscow lias just witnessed the enactment of a very important legislative measure, writes Alexander I. Nazaroff in the "New York Times." After ten days o£ discussion, the AllEussian. Executive Committee ratified on 15th November'tho new, code of marnage and family laws. Opinions aa to what will .be, the-effect of this action differ widely. Suporters of the new, code maintain tliat it will set unprecedently high standards of protection of women's rights, while adverse critics assort that it will deal a new blow to the already shaken morals of Bussia's population.; All agree that the new code is an exceptionally ■• important document, and that its effect upon, the cultural life of the Soivet Union may be enormous. According to Comrade N. Kiylenko, Supreme Attorney of the Republic, the Soviet Government drafted this code "with the purpose of bringing some sort of order into the chaos reigning in the relations between sexes and in the juridical status of the family." Indeed, the Great "War, the civil war, and especially the Soviet decrees of 1918, by which divorce was so simplified as to become a matter of a few minutes, plunged Russia into a sort of matrimonial anarchy. Husbands abandoned their wives and found new. ones, only to abandon thom-a month later. Some Russians in the course of these years are said to have acquired as many as twenty-five legal wives. Soviet Courts arc loaded with lawsuits arising from this strange state of affairs. Claims of divorced women for alimony, petitions submitted on behalf of children abandoned by their parents,* and disputes over the division of family property aro so numerous • that they eat up all of the time of a People's Judge. It became evident that urgent measures must be. taken in order to find a way out of such chaos. DISCUSSION IN: THE, VILLAGES. Before ratifying this code the Soviet Government resorted, to a hitherto unprecedented, measure. As soon, as its: project was drafted a, year ago, the Commissariat of Justice sent copies to the provincial Soviets > and instructed the village authorities to hold meetings.; for its reading and public discussion. Crowds of men and women—peasants, workmen, students, intellectuals—assombled all over-^hc country and debated the issue from all imaginary angles. The results of this primitive referendum were taken into consideration, ■at least to a certain extent, by the Soviet Government. The code, as ratified, is far from being 'so radical as was the original draft. The most salient features may be summarised a.s follows:— First it gives jurdical protection not only to the registered, or legal, marriage, but also in tho unregistered —that is to say, common-law—mar-riage. " , -N Second, unregistered wives (or husbands) arc entitled in case of divorce, like those registered, to Bix months' alimony it they are unemployed and to a year's alimony if they are invalids. Third, if unregistered • husbands and wives register in the usual way it will bo considered that their marriage is legal._ | Fourth, unregistered wives do 'not i shaio the political rights of their husbands. Fifth, a husbaiul must support his wife before the birth of a child and for six months afterwards. Sixth, both husband and wife retain their respective property after they have been divorced, while the property that was accumulated by them during I their marriage life is divided between them. The code also contains a provision in virtue of which children' must be supported by both parents, unless one of tho parents is unemployed. CRITICISM OF THE CODE. The codo is criticised from most dissimilar angles and for a great variety of reasons. It is especially the institutionof "unregistered wives" that gives rise to the discussion; : Comrade D. Kursky, People's Commissar of Justice, thus defends it: "There aro hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions, of women who are virtual wives without being official wives. To leave them without protection would be unjust and cruel. It might mean tragedy to many of them." Yet his opponents, Comrades Soltz and Vassiliev-Yuzzhzin of the Commissariat of Justice, answer: "The legalisation, of unregistered marirages will be responsible for the fact that many men will have three, four, or more wives. In. other words, the new code will legalise, the practice' of polygamy and polyandry." While somo/criticise the code as too radical, others condemn it as too conservative. Younger elements of tho Communist Party, members of the "Comscimol," Red officers of the latest formation, etc., seem to believe that their older comrades have betrayed the principles which they preached at the begining of the revolution. "They now want to protect the family, that obsolete institution which real Communists should fight to their last broath; The new code is a typical little-bourgeois document." It is in such words'. that the opinion of these critics may Tse summarised. z These young men'have some authoritative and influential supporters among the leading dignitaries of the party. On*e of them is Mine. A. Kollbntay. A i'ew months ago, when the code was being discussed, she published in the Soviet Press her- own project of matrimoniai laws, The family,,she asserted^ should bo abolished by a special and unequivocal decree; a speieal tax should be 'levied on, the^working people, of the ! Union to constitute a 'fund'for : the nursing of all children born in the Republic. ■'•' •'■ " . . '-■ -.'. ■'; ; ''.'•;

Such was the daring project that competed.for some, time with the nawadopfced code. Mme. Kollontay was, however, rebuked by a number of responsible Communists and her ideas were pronounced i heresy. ■.-■"■•'.. Young and radical Cominuniats ■- are right in maintaining that the new code tries to protect the registered and even the unregistered family, while the old Soviet legislation aimed to destroy it. This, of course, may be. described as a "retreat" on the "moral front" similar to the '^retreat" witnessed on the "economic" ana "political" fronts. The atempt to destroy "old morals" has resulted/ as .did the attempt to destroy, the "old economies," in. chaos. Now a compromise is being sought. ;