The Soviet Family

on the World Today

IN the first years after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, Russian leaders believed that by removing both the legal and economic bonds of family life they would make possible the development of “true monogamy” and “true family unity.” This conception underlay the Soviet Family Code of 1926, in which both marriage and divorce were made a matter of private agreement.

Marriage was treated in law as a de facto relationship; registration of marriage, although encouraged, was not essential. Similarly, divorce could be accomplished merely by factual separation — although, again, the husband or wife was encouraged to notify the Bureau of Vital Statistics, at least bypostcard.

The liberalization of marriage and divorce was part of a larger program leading to the ultimate “withering away of the family”— that is, of the family as a legal and economic institution. Inheritance was at first declared to be abolished, and was later reintroduced with very severe restrictions. Extramarital children were given full equality with those born in wedlock. Abortions were legalized and could be obtained free of charge at state hospitals. Women were relieved of practically all legal and economic disabilities in an effort to emancipate them from dependence; upon men and from “the slavery of the kitchen.”

It was thought that eventually children would be brought up by the state. “Our state institutions of guardianship,” wrote the principal draftsman of early Soviet family legislation, “must showparents that the social care of children gives far better results than the private and irrational care of individual parents who are ‘loving’ but, in the matter of bringing up children, ignorant.”

The return to family ties

But in the mid-1930s the theory that the “socialist family” would not the hound bv legal and economic ties was officially denounced as a “left dev iation. This rightabout-face in theory, with its wide practical implications, was associated with many other fundamental changes which took place at about the same time, including the return to llussian patriotism and to national traditions, the reemphasis of rights of personal property, and the general restoration of law as a means of social control.

The return to family ties was also a direct response to practical family problems created in part by the earlier attitudes and policies. Juvenile delinquencyhad greatly increased, at least, in the large cities, and in 1935 laws were passed imposing certain liabilities on parents for the crimes of their children.

The abortion rate in some cities had come to exceed the birth rate, and in 1936 abortions were prohibited except when continuation of the pregnancy seriously endangered the life of the mother or when the parents had a dangerous disease which could be transferred by heredity.

The 1936 law on abortions also provided benefits for mothers of large families and instituted a system of progressively increasing fees for successive registered divorces. (There were 38.3 divorces per 100 marriages in Moscow in the first half of 1935, according to Soviet reports.) The juxtaposition of abortions, motherhood benefits, and divorce indicates that the entire subject of Soviet family life was under review, and that population policy and family instability were considered as different aspects of the same problem.

A preces of divorce

The charging of fees for registered divorces could not solve the problem of de facto divorces, however; and although in the late thirties and early forties the courts became stricter in their requirements for proof of de facto marriages and divorces, ii still remained true that many couples married for convenience — to obtain better living quarters in a crowded city, for example—and divorced at their leisure.

Finally, in 1944, a new family law established a judicial process of divorce, for the first time since the 1917 Revolution. Registration of marriage was made compulsory-, with provision for a “solemn procedure” and “suitable premises properlyfurnished.” The responsibility of fathers for support of children born out of wedlock was eliminated. In addition, the new law vastly increased the system of bonuses and medals for mothers of large families and also set up a system of monthly state allowances for unmarried mothers.

WHEN MARRIAGE fails

Not only did the 1944 legislation introduce judicial divorce procedure for the first time since the Revolution, but it introduced a secular judicial divorce procedure for the first time in Russian history — since prior to 1917? marriage and divorce were matters of ecclesiastical law exclusively.

The new Soviet divorce procedure, though secular, bears some similarity to that of the Russian religious tradition. Russian Orthodox ecclesiastical law regards marriage as a sacrament, and regards divorce, therefore, as a breach of the divine order of things, justified only in exceptional circumstances. Soviet law has not adopted the Russian Orthodox grounds for divorce, but it now treats divorce as a kind of fall from grace, a breach of the socialist ideal, to be granted only when the marriage has completely failed. Further, Soviet divorce law, like that of the Orthodox Church, places stress on a reconciliation procedure.

Whether or not a Soviet divorce is contested, both spouses must appear at a preliminary reconciliation hearing in the People’s Court. Only it the defendant is insane, or missing, or serving a criminal sentence is this requirement waived. The Court is obliged to question the parties to ascertain the reasons for seeking a divorce, and to attempt to effect a reconciliation.

There are only scattered statistics on divorce and no indications of the actual divorce rate? in Russia today. In 1947 one author admonished the Ukrainian courts for their “lighthearted attitude̶ toward reconciliation, and complained that in 309 divorce cases in the Kiev region in the first quarter of the year, only 7 were settled by reconciliation. But two years later another author stated that in two Ukrainian regions reconciliation was effected in .54 per cent and 56 per cent of the cases.

That the reconciliation procedure is taken seriously is indicated by the fact that the Supreme Court of the U.S.S.R. has on several occasions set aside divorce decrees because the preliminary hearing was incomplete.

Grounds for Soviet divorce

If no reconciliation is effected, either spouse (or both) may file a petition for divorce in the next higher court. The Family Code states no grounds for divorce, leaving it to the discretion of the court. But from the reports of cases and from Soviet legal treatises it is possible to detect the gradual emerging of a judge-made tradition of divorce law.

A general principle was laid down by the Soviet Supreme Court in a directive to lower courts that “temporary family discords and conflicts caused by accidental and transitory circumstances or the unwillingness of one or both spouses to continue the marriage, when not based on serious considerations, cannot be deemed sufficient grounds for divorce.”

Mere incompatibility is not enough where there are minor children, even though the divorce is uncontested. The plaintiff may not rely on his own infidelity as a ground for a contested divorce. “The relationships which were created in the family, for which the plaintiff was himself responsible,” the Supreme Court declared in reversing the decision of a lower court, “cannot serve as the basis for a divorce. The decision of the [lower] court in this case sanctions in substance the clearly amoral relationship of V. to his family duties, and it cannot be accepted as correct.” Thus a moral element is introduced into Soviet divorce law.

On the other hand, the adultery or other guilt of the plaintiff will not rule out the divorce if “reestablishment of marital relations is impossible of achievement.” In cases where the marriage had ̶factually terminated,” as where the defendant had deserted or where the plaintiff had established another family, the courts have granted divorces.

Divorce is expensive in the Soviet Union. The plaintiff must pay a fee of 100 rubles for filing the divorce petition, as well as the cost of a notice in the newspaper. Upon the granting of a divorce, a fee of 500 to 2000 rubles is charged — theoretically, as a fine imposed on the “guilty" party; actually it is usually levied against the plaintiff. Five hundred rubles is more than many Soviet workers, and most Soviet peasants, earn in a month.

Concepts of civil obligation of contract and tort play a very minor role, if any, in Soviet divorce law. Anglo-American doctrines preventing the granting of a divorce in cases where the petitioner has “connived” with or “condoned” the misconduct of the respondent, or where there has been “collusion” or “recrimination,” are entirely alien to Soviet law, while the common American practice of granting uncontested divorces automatically is equally foreign.

Fimily legislation

Soviet divorce procedure must be seen in the light of Soviet family legislation as a whole. Between 1944 and 1950, 30,750 Soviet women received the Order of Mother Heroine of the Soviet Union, and the substantial bonuses and allowances that: go with it, for having given birth to and reared ten or more children. In the same period 2,770,000 other mothers of live children or more received the Motherhood Medal or the Order of the Glory of Motherhood. The 1949 State Budget provided 3,400,000,000 rubles for maternity benefits; the 1950 Budget provided 4,000,000,000 rubles.

At the same time, there has been no substantial change apparent in the policy toward working women, no positive effort to encourage them to leave the factory or the professions. There are more than 100,000 women doctors in the Soviet Union and more than 250,000 women engineers and technicians; 120,000 Soviet women won combat decorations in the last war. There are probably more women judges than men in the lower courts, and in the Supreme Court of the U.S.S.R., with approximately 90 members, there are some 14 women.

The program of maternity benefits has not caused any apparent letup in the program of crèches, nurseries, and other aids to working mothers. their legal independence has not been curtailed; thenseparate property rights have even been enhanced by the ruling that maternity bonuses belong to the mother individually and are not part of the joint marital property.

But education and propaganda, implemented with material incentives, have definitely shifted their emphasis toward parental responsibility, filial devotion, marital fidelity, the family, and the home. “A woman who has not yet known the joy of motherhood has not yet realized all the greatness of her calling,” declared Prcvda in welcoming the 1944 family legislation.

Today, according to a leading Soviet writer on the family, “the people of the U.S.S.R. are convinced that not only in a socialist but even in a perfect, communist society, nobody will be able to replace the parents — the loving father and mother.”