MARRIAGE IN RUSSIA

Evening Star, Issue 19408, 17 November 1926, Page 5

MARRIAGE IN RUSSIA

ABOLISHING REGISTRATION PROTEST BY PEASANTRY “LEGALISING POLYGAMY.” Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright LONDON, November 16. (Received November 17, at 9.35 a.m.) The Moscow* correspondent of the ‘ Daily Express ’ says that there is every prospect of the proposal to abolish the registration of marriages becoming law, but the proposal, which was introduced by the Commissar of Justice, precipitated a stormy debate at a session of the Central Executive of the Soviet Republics. The strongest opposition came from the delegates representing the peasantry, one declaring that it was simply a measure to legalise polygamy. He asked the Government what machinery it was going to establish to decide when conjugal relations had taken place. There were 100,000 unregistered marriages last year. What about illegitimate children? A delegate angrily interjected that there were no illegitimates. Russia would order the children to be protected. Marriage must be merely a matter of consent, and the desire of two people, nothing more. M. Krylenko, the State Prosecutor, opposed the laxity of the proposed legislation, urging that in a state of pc]i»gamy the woman was invariably the sufferer.—Sydney ‘ Sun ’ Cable.