FINAL REPORT T O

NATIONALCOUNCIL FORSOVIET AND EAST EUROPEAN RESEARC H

TITLE :

CELL MUTATION IN SOVIET SOCIETY :

THEFAMILY

AUTHOR : Peter H o Juvile r

CONTRACTOR : Research Institute of International Chancre ,

Columbia Universit y
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR : Seweryn Biale r
COUNCIL CONTRACT NUMBER : 801-1 5
DATE : June, 198'7

The work leading to this report was supported by funds provide d

by the National Council for Soviet and East European Research .

THE NATIONAL COUNCI L

FOR SOVIET AND EAST EUROPEAN RESEARC H

BoardSuite
of Trustees

1755 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W .
LeonChairman,
S. Lipson
304
Vladimir I. Toumanoff Washington,
D.C .2036
Executive
(202 )
387-0168Director

PREFAC E

This report is one of 13 separate papers by differen t

authors which, assembled, will constitute the chapters of

Festschrift volume in honor of Professor Vera S . Dunham, to be

published by Westview Press . The papers will be distribute d
individually to government readers by the Council in advance o f
editing and publication by the Press, and therefore, may not b e
identical to the versions ultimately published .
The Contents for the entire series appears immediatel y
following this Preface .
As distributed by the Council, each individual report wil l
contain this Preface, the Contents, the Editor's Introductio n
for the pertinent division (I, II, or III) of the volume, an d
the separate paper itself .

BOARD OF
ITRUSTES ;.:DJGeIhawEvoHirdlgtF(VBzcpbsACkyumdn)
L
Keenan ; Robert Legvold ; Herbert S . Levine ; Leon S . Lipson (Chairman) ; Paul Marer ; Daniel C . Matuszewski ; Alfred G . Meyer; Peter Reddaway ;
Paul S . Shoup; Vladimir I . Toumanoff, Richard S .Wortman

CON I ENT S

Introductio n
Seweryn Diale r

I . Trends in Soviet Societ y

Editors' Introductio n
James R . Milla r

II.

The Little Deal :

Brezhnev' s
Contribution to Acquisitiv e
Socialism "

Sheila Fitzpatric k

"` Middleclass Values' and Sovie t

Life in the 1930s "

Peter H . Juvile r

"Cell Mutation in Soviet Society :

The Soviet Family "

John Bushnel l

"Urban Leisure Culture in Post Stalin Russia :

Stability a s
a Social Problem? "

Michael Paul Sack s

"The Division of Labor in Centra l

Asia and its Influence Upo n
Ethnic and Gender Conflict "

Literary Perspective s
Editors' Introductio n
Edward J . Brown

Richard Sheldon
Donald Fanger an d
Gordon Cohen

"Trifonov :
Artist "

The Historian a s

The Transformations of Bahl Yar "

"Dissidence, Diffidence, an d
Russian Literary Tradition :
The Lonely Dialogue of Abra m
Tertz "

Ill.

The Language of Ideolog y

Editors' Introductio n

1V_

Alexander Dallin

"The Uses and Abuses of Russia n

History "

Alfred Erich Senn

"Creating a Consensus : Sovie t

Historiography of the Russia n
Revolutionary Movement in th e
Nineteenth Century" -

Terry L . Thompson

"Developed Socialism : Brezhnev' s

Contribution to Soviet Ideology "

Sources of Soviet Stabilit y

Editors' Introductio n
Gertrude E . Schroeder - "The State-Run Economy : Stabilit y
or Ossification?
An Essay on th e
Soviet Production System "
Seweryn Dialer

"The Conditions of Stability in th e

Soviet Union"

(Editors'

Introduction )

I. Trends in Soviet Societ y

The non-coercive aspects of social control in the Soviet Union have comprised a very strong leitmotif in Vera Dunham's work throughout her career . Mos t
evident in her pioneering work,

In Stalin's Time,

her focus on state-societ y

interaction has also been apparent in numerous scholarly articles and lec tures_ Professor Dunham has used the phrase "Big Deal" to describe one importan t
use of positive social control under Stalin _

The Big Deal refers to the Soviet regime's tacit alliance with the ne w
"middle class" of engineers, administrators, and managers who were vital to th e
rebuilding

effort

after World War II . Rather than relying an coercion, as migh t

be expected in the aftermath of the Great Purges

of

the 1930s, the regime tried a

new tack . This amounted to an accommodation of the personal, materialisti c

longings of this group of people whose expertise and skills were in critica l
demand_ The goal of the Big Deal was to garner support of these experts an d
administrators by offering the incentives they wanted most : housing, consume r
goods, and leisure time . The conversion of these private aspirations to accept able public values was the key component of the Big Deal _

While Professor Dunham's analysis of the Big Deal has been confined to th e
postwar period, the use of accommodation by the regime to deal with the middl e
class was evident already in the mid-late 1930s and extended well beyond th e
immediate postwar years . This characteristic of the Soviet system tends to g o
unnoticed, however, especially in studies

of

the Stalinist era. Recent refer-

ences to the Soviet Union as the "Evil Empire" have also clouded the existence o f
other than the negative aspects of social control . However, as the revolutionar y
ethos recedes further into the background, the use of

positive levers to attai n

many economic and social goals has become more important . Paradoxically ,
positive, materialistic levers have been used to bolster the political stabilit y
of a political system whose very legitimacy is based upon a radical restructurin g
of society . A thorough examination of the implications of this paradox, a n
examination continued in the essays that follow, is Professor Dunham's primar y
contribution to the study of Soviet society .

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY *

This paper reviews the data available, and th e

explanations offered for the breakdown of the family in Sovie t
society .
As Soviet people put together their economy and thei r
family lives, so traumatized by the Great Patriotic War, writer s
and researchers began to reveal among their compatriots a
personal life of emotions, sexual involvements, and individua l
aspirations under what had come to be a veneer of officia l
prudery and regimentation . It came as no surprise when someon e
finally reported a "sexual revolution" in the U .S .S .R . Thi s
revolution marked an erosion of traditional morality, and a
wider assertion of free choice in behavior and family ties amon g
the Soviet population at large .
According to the ideological boiler plate in comments o n
the Soviet family, the growing evidence of family breakdown s
associated with people's assertion of personal freedom of choic e
marked not the demise of family life in Soviet socialis t
society, such as threatens capitalist society, but the family' s
entry into a transitional period, between traditional ways an d
the advent of the ideal communist family . In that family ,

Prepared by the staff of the National Council

ii .
marriage would be based "not on material calculation" an d
egotism but on "mutual love, respect and friendship of al l
family members . "
The idea of a distinctive "new Soviet family" ha s
justified the Soviet turnabout, dating back to 1935, from mer e
tolerance of the family as a temporary necessity t o
"strengthening the family" as the "primary cell of Sovie t
society ."

Soviet experts mince no words about the harm tha t

breakdowns in that social cell do to the size and upbringing o f

the labor force .

Experts' research, as well as other sources o f

information and one's own observations convey the message tha t

family breakdowns are but symptoms of irreversible changes i n
the Soviet way of life, bringing with them, in turn, crucia l
transformations of family values and needs of Soviet spouses ,
especially on the part of what one could only anachronisticall y
call "the distaff side" .
One senses behind the breakdowns and divorces th e
influence of changes which lie beyond the reach of eithe r
superficial palliatives or legal compulsion . It is much easie r
to forbid a family to open a private store or service enterpris e
or to crush human rights or feminist groups than it is to compe l
spouses to stay together who do not want to . Spouses' assertio n
of individual choice appears to spring from irreversible change s
in the family milieu : the loss of the old firm economic ,
communal and religious bonds tying generations and spouse s
together, and the virtually total involvement of women in wor k
beyond the family in the Soviet Union, outside certain enclaves

of tradition in areas of indigenous, non-European settlement i n

Central Asia and the Caucasus .
These changes and the permeation of new values out from a n
avant garde and from other industrialized nations, espeically i n
Soviet cities but also ever more in the villages too, hav e
wrought changes also in the psychology of men and women a s
lovers, husbands, and wives . A lifelong commitment to marriag e
and one family has been devalued, divorce made conceivable, eve n
acceptable or welcome, to ever more people . An ever highe r
priority is given to the satisfaction of personal needs i n
marriage -- and outside marriage or in new marriage, if nee d
be . As women have become more independent economically and
psychologically, they have put much higher demands on thei r
husbands and their marriages and now take the lead in initiatin g
divorces .
Soviet researchers will be the first to admit that the y
have yet to develop a viable "theory of marital conflict ." As
do some U .S . analysts,

all

Soviet sociologists state, at leas t

in print, that the present troubles of the Soviet family ar e

transitional, as "survivals" of old patriarchalism and crudenes s
fade and new ideals have yet fully to take hold .

The family i s

adapting not disintegrating . The reason the Soviet regime i s

concerned is that the longer the adaptation takes, the mor e
demographic damage will be wrought by divorce and breakup .
Also, in both the U .S . and the USSR, predictions about th e
family depend on one's viewpoint . Traditionalists like the U .S .
Moral Majority, or the ethnologists in the USSR nostalgic for

iv .
the old peasant family bonds, see two alternatives : eithe r
return to old ways, or the end of the family as a viable socia l
unit, with grievous social consequences . Empiricists in bot h
countries expect the family to adapt to its new environment . A s
a prerequisite they see the need for a new level of preparatio n
and knowledge about marriage among newlyweds and a new consensu s
over the meaning of equality for men and women in modern life .

CELL

MUTATION IN SOVIET SOCIETY : THE FAMILY

Peter H . Juvile r
As Soviet people put together their economy and their family lives, s o
traumatized by the Great Patriotic War, writers and researchers began to revea l
among their compatriots a personal life of emotions, sexual involvements, an d
individual aspirations under what had come to be a veneer of official pruder y
and regimentation.1 It came as no surprise when someone finally reported a
"sexual revolution" in the USSR . 2

This revolution marked an erosion o f

traditional morality, and a wider assertion of free choice in behavior an d

family ties among the Soviet population at large .
According to the ideological boiler plate in comments on the Sovie t
family, the growing evidence of family breakdowns associated with people' s
assertion of a personal freedom of choice marked not the demise of family lif e
in Soviet socialist society, such as threatens capitalist society, but th e
family's entry into a transitional period, between traditional ways and th e
advent of the ideal communist family . In that family, marriage would b e
based "not on material calculation" and egotism but on "mutual love, respec t
and friendship of all family members ." 3
The idea of a distinctive "new Soviet family" has justified the Sovie t
turnabout, dating back to 1935, from mere tolerance of the family as a
temporary necessity to "strengthening the family" as the "primary cell o f
Soviet society ." 4

Soviet experts mince no words about the harm that breakdown s

in that social cell do to the size and upbringing of the labor force . 5
Experts' research, as well as other sources of information and one's ow n
observations convey the message that family breakdowns are but symptoms o f
1

irreversible changes in the Soviet way of life, bringing with them, in turn ,
crucial transformations of the family values and needs of Soviet spouses ,
especially on the part of what one could only anachronistically call "th e
distaff side ."
Breakdown s
Vladimir Soloukhin's topical vignette of the talk at a Soviet gatherin g
sums up what is happening . It is the talk of guests invited to their summe r
cottage by Tamara Vetlugina and her husband, Sergei, "who holds a rathe r
important position in one ministry (it is not important which, there are mor e
than a hundred of them) . "
The company, gathered to celebrate the Vetlugins' silver weddin g
anniversary, chatter about "marriages that come into being instantly an d
instantly break up," while ZAGS registers in two years 70 divorces for ever y
hundred marriages . Zealous defenses of the family as "the primary cell of th e
body politic" get all but drowned out in the jocular but pointed complaint s
about bossy and possessive women (a husband may not dance with another woma n
or drop in on a movie alone when he feels like it any more, without catching i t
from his wife), and the responses : "Without us you'd get nowhere ." How often
might one hear the same things in talks with Russian friends : rampant
infidelity and permissiveness these days, uppity women who smoke more and mor e
while men are dropping the habit, chucking their men and raising their kids o n
their own "and not only because they are deserted ." And, a voice from th e
past, but a hardy "survival" : women's natural talent lies not in the arts an d
the professions, where men have always excelled, "not in mathematics or trad e
union organizing," and her fulfillment not in "emancipation" but "women' s

strength lies in their feminine essence, and only in that . . . . But once you
have full equality, then what--more divorces than marriages ." 6
Literary exposes like this one prompted a critic in the party newspaper ,
Pravda, to lament, more wistfully than censuriously, that literature, films an d
the stage can no longer present credible images of romantic, true, and abidin g
love . "The problem in truth exists, and literature, we note, senses it . The
stories mentioned here, the situations described in them, are fully true t o
life . Unfortunately the number of divorces is not yet diminishing, man y
marriages exist only on paper, and we often encounter cynical, self-servin g
(potrebitel'skiy) attitudes of men and women . A . Lunacharski i* wrote that 'men
and women will one day create a great poem of love .' Evidently that day has no t
dawned yet ." Too many people live their singles lives in hedonisti c
bachelorhood . Each bachelor of thirty represents possibly one or two fewe r
children born than had they married at normal ages . Then there is the woman
who dreams once in a while of being "not a member of the mestkom * but simply a
woman," and who will begin the next day all over again "running from store t o
store, making the arragements" for meetings, exchanging reproaches, famil y
arguments and as a result the steadily increasing alienation from her husband . "
Themes like the not-too-committing "open marriage" will be familiar to th e
U .S . reader . So will the theme of the professional absorbed in his work wh o
has just so much time and attention and no more for his wife and two sons . 7
Stalin silenced social researchers, but allowed to literature passin g
glimpses of war's psychic scars . Vera Dunham has pointed to signs in Sovie t

*Anatoly Lunacharskii (1873-1933), critic and revolutionary, People' s

Commissar of Enlightenment, 1917-1929 .
** District trade union committee
3

writing, during the late 1940s and early 1950s, of the strains on conjugal

relations imposed by wartime separation and readjustments between reunite d

spouses . Vera Dunham shows us at the same time that people tended to settl e
down after the war to try to rebuild their lives and to acquire middle clas s
comforts, complete with treasured pink ornate lampshades . 8

Divorce dat a

published after Stalin register the lowest recorded divorce rate, of 0 .4 pe r

thousand, in 1950, and only one divorce for every 29 marriages (See Table 1) .
Not even labor camp separated a country woman from the Ukrainian region o f
Khmelnik and her husband, a former collective farm chairman .
He organized a gang which looted stores in a neighborin g
district and distributed the booty among members of thei r
collective . He was picked up, quite by chance (the villag e
had kept the whole affair strictly to themselves), an d
sentenced to twenty-five years in a camp at Kharkov . A t
the time of his arrest he and his wife had one child . His
wife waited patiently while he waited out his sentenc e
and came to visit him every six months, as the regulation s
permitted her to do . As a result of these brief reunions
they had five more children by the time he was released . . . .
By defying the barbed wire and the watchtowers, their lov e
was able to endure and their family at last to b e
reunited .
One must not forget that by no means all marriages survived a spouse cam p
confinement . Moreover, millions of mothers remained single, in incomplet e
families, because of the unfavorable balance of males and females after th e
war . 10

Untold numbers of people circumvented the protracted, complex an d

costly divorce proceedings under the edict of July 8, 1944, entering new ,
unregistered, therefore legally unrecognized marriages . 11
Divorce rates began to soar after Stalin, though under the same stringen t
law of 1944 . Rates by 1955 had increased to one and a half times the 195 0
level . Between 1955 and 1965, rates increased another 270 percent (Table 1) .

What can explain this greatest leap in divorce rates since the revolutionar y
period?
Table 1
Registered Marriages and RegisteredDivorces*
and Percent Urban Population, USSR ,
Selected Years, 1940-198 4
Year
1940
1950
1955
1965
1966
1972
1974
1979
1984

Marr .
6 .3
11 .6
11 .5
8 .7
8 .9
9 .4
10 .3
10 .9
9 .6

Div .
1 .1
0 .4
0 .6
1 .6
2 .8
2 .6
2 .9
3 .6
3 .4

Marr ./Div .
5 .7
29 .0
19 .2
5 .4
3 .2
3 .6
3 .6
3 .0
2 .8

Urb . Pop .
33
39
44
53
53
58
59
62
65

Sources : Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR (Narkhoz) v 1979 godu, pp . 7, 35 ; Narkhozv

1984 godu, pp . 5, 32 .
Probable contibutors to family breakups include steady increase in
urbanization, liberalized divorce court practice,13 and the decline over tim e
in the cost of divorce relative to salaries (Table 2) .
Table 2
Minimum Divorce Registration Fees for Cour t
Divorces Compared with Average Salaries, USS R

Years
1944-65

Minimu m
Fees
100

Averag e
Year
1946
1950
1960
1965
1966
1984

Monthly
Wages
48 .1
64 .2
80 .6
96 .0
100 .2
184 .8

Fees as Percen t
of Wage s
207
156
124
10 4
60
32

Sources : Narkhoz 1922-1972, p . 350 ; Narkhoz v 1965 godu, p . 566 ; Narkhozv

1984 godu, p . 417 ; Peter Juviler, "Marriage and Divorce," Survey, 48 (1963) ,
p . 107 .

*per 1000 inhabitant s

**

rubles
5

Simplifications in divorce procedure effective January 1, 1966 prompted a

large one-time leap in divorce rates, from 1 .6 in 1965 to 2 .8 in 1966 .14

Rates

stayed around that level through 1972, but then began to rise to a recorde d
peak of 3 .6 in 1979 . The rate in 1984 was lower, 3 .4, meaning about 931,00 0
divorces in the USSR . But the ratio of divorces to marriages reached a ne w
high of 35 percent . Soviet divorce rates now hover at a level higher than tha t
in any other industrialized country except the U .S ., where they are over 5 .0 .
No wonder that Soviet analyses of trends in the family grow more sombre, an d
less boastful . 15

In 30 years, 1950-1980, in sum, registered divorces increased

nine times, an amount beyond the reach of legal changes alone . The ratio o f
divorces to marriages increased tenfold ; the birthrate fell almost ten point s
and the population's natural increase (births minus deaths per thousan d
inhabitants) dropped to one half . 16

During the same decades the urban share o f

the population nearly doubled . And it is in cities, especially those o f

European settlement, where most of the highest divorce rates are registered .
In 1974 when the national divorce rate was 2 .9, it reached 5 .2 in Moscow . 1 7
Soviet cities have divorce rates roughly comparable to those in U .S . cities, o r
in some cases higher, as they are in the case of the three largest cities i n
the two countries, for example in 1979 :
Moscow
Leningrad
Kiev

5 .6
6 .1
5 .4

New York
Los Angeles
Chicago

3 .7
5.4
4 .1

The divorce rates of the 25 largest U .S . cities range from 2 .8 in Boston to

8 .2 in Dallas Fort Worth and Houston ; for the 27 cities of the USSR which ar e
republic capitals or over one million in population, from 2 .1 in Erevan to 6 . 8
in Alma Ata . 18

Rural divorce rates average about 40 percent of urban ones . But th e

"epidemic of divorces" is spreading from the cities out to the villages .
Slowly but steadily, high divorce rates are becoming the norm, outside enclave s
of tradition and family solidarity in border republics of the Caucasus an d
Central Asia, and in scattered pockets of non-European settlement in th e
RSFSR . 1 9
Divorces provide symptoms of breakdown in the family . Urbanization set s
the stage for it and for the changes in spouses' motives, values and need s
that loosen family bonds .
Motives : What They Tell the Judge s
When spouses petition for divorce, they must list their motive, as proo f
that the family has broken down . The motives cited to a Moscow court ar e
representatives of a wider picture . 20

(see Table 4, page 8 )

Table 4
Motives for Divorce, People's Court ,
Leningrad Borough, Moscow, 197 8
Of Husbands (155 )

Of Wives (345 )
Share Tota l
Motive

(percent)

(percent)

Drunkenness of spouse
Incompatibility
Infidelity
Frequent Quarrels
Appearance of another family
Loss of feeling of love

62 .6
6 .6
9 .2
6 .9
2 .0
0 .2

4 .5
24 .5
14 .1
14 .1
14 .8
10 .9

Spouse's jealousy
Unavoidable separation
Physical incompatibility
Spouse's irresponsibility
Meddling of parents and relatives
Various illnesses
Fictitious marriage
Separation
Absence of, lack of wish to hav e
children
Other motives

2 .0
2 .0
1 .4
1 .4
1 .4
1 .4
1 .4
0 .8

1 .2

0 .2
0 .5

2 .5
0 .8

Both Spouses
44 . 6
12 . 2
10 . 7
9.1
6 .0
3 .5
86 . 1

3 .2
1 .2
1 .9
1.9
1 .2
3 .2

Source : V . A . Sysenko, "Razvody : dinamika, motivy, posledstviia, "

Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia, 2 (1982), 99-104 . Weighted share, las t
column, calculated .

Separated by occupation of the petitioners, the divorce cases of blue colla r

spouses show drunkenness and alcoholism as a much more frequent motive (59 . 5
percent) than it is for white collar spouses (17 .5 percent) . White colla r
petitioners are more likely to cite incompatibility and frequent quarrels .
All told, the main motives for divorce offered to the judges are drunkenness ,
incompatibility (neskhvodstvo kharakterov), infidelity, frequent quarrels, th e
appearance of another family, loss of a feeling of love . Especially striking ,
when comparing husbands and wives, is the fact that two thirds of the divorce s
are by the wives, motivated they say, by their husbands' drunkenness an d
alcoholism as by far the leading provocation to divorce . 21

Husbands are muc h

more prone than are their wives, it appears, not only to alcohol abuse ,
but also to outside liaisons (witness the high male figure for second family )
and to making an issue of not having children (though overall this is not a
prominent motive) .
Searching behind the court-registered "motives" for divorce ,
Soviet experts aren't ready to produce an over-arching "theory of marita l
conflict . " 22

But as in Western research, the Soviets return over and again t o

three basic changes, associated with Soviet economic and social development ,
when seeking "causes" for climbing divorce rates and family instability .
Urbanization erodes social mores and community controls supportive of permanen t
family ties . New values give family and marriage less priority and other form s
of involvement more than they once had . Third, strains arise in marriage du e
to conflicts between the needs of husband and wife . All three changes- urbanization, new values, and new strains growing out of new needs--tie u p
with changes in the role of the family and of women . The family's economi c
role has declined, in many parts of the USSR, with the separation of productiv e
9

work from families there . Women's near-total employment adds a new work rol e
to that of homemaker . This all devalues the family as a unit of suppor t
(though not entirely) . Spouses are more likely, by far, than in Stalin's day ,
to be strangers in a strange place when they marry, to bring into thei r
marriage values not protective of it, and needs not compatible with conjuga l
harmony .

Strangers in a Strange Plac e

This heading is not to be taken literally . It does imply, though, that a s
compared with the life of small towns and villages, city life brings anonymity ,
loss of community control . Gone is the family's voice in whom children shal l
marry . Marriages tend to be hasty and between persons who were stranger s
before the wedding and who remain strangers in important ways . 23
Of 175 grooms questioned when applying for marriage licenses at the Mosco w
Wedding Palace and ZAGS offices, just under half, 48 percent, said they ha d
courted their brides less than a year . 24

Yet the shorter the pre-marita l

acquaintance, the more likely an early divorce . 25

The newlyweds hardly know

one another, then come the shocks and disappointments : "We can't get along, "
"My wife can't cook," etc . And the hasty marriages end in hasty divorces . 26
Moscow's newlyweds in their first marriages are "grown up children, says th e
head of the Department of Marriage and the Family of the Moscow City Soviet .
Only one fifth of those young newlyweds surveyed knows the rudiments o f
planning a family budget . 27

No wonder the most intense divorce rates, b y

length of marriage, occur in the earliest years ; a half to two thirds of al l

marriages that break up legally end in divorce within the first four years o f
marriage . 28

10

Noting Western findings that pre-marital conflicts can mean trouble fo

, 29 a Moscow researcher found similar evidence of high rates o f rthemaig
unresolved conflicts among fiancees she questioned : over "lack of understandin g
by the partner (31 percent of grooms and 39 percent of brides) ,
" inattentiveness" (15 and 18 percent, respectively), "spending too much tim e
with friends" (8 and 11 percent), "drinking too much" (each 14 percent) .
Surprisingly 70 percent of the grooms and 60 percent of the brides could no t
name any pastime or interest shared with their partners . One in five of th e
couples questioned disagreed over the groom's belief that he should be head o f
the family while the bride preferred an equal division of authority (althoug h
the majority of couples favored an egalitarian family) . No less serious, 5 2
percent of the couples disagreed over the question of "to what degree the wif e
should devote herself to her family and to what extent to her work ." In 41
percent of the couples the women gave a higher priority to professiona l
activity than the man would like them to . 30

This is not far from th e

proportion of disagreement found in U .S . two-career families . 31

The task of adjustment to marriage for "green" young couples is furthe r
cowlicated by the difficulties they often encounter in getting a place t o
live, housing in a room, let alone an apartment, that affords them any privacy .
More than 70 percent of newlyweds in Volgograd file for divorce during th e
first year of their marriages . The leading reason given to Komsomo l
questioners was the unavailability of housing, whether state housing, or a roo m
rented on the side from private parties . 32

Students and graduating specialist s

sent on first assignment have particular difficulties . Neither colleg e

adminsitrations nor officials at worksites show much concern ; housing newlywed s

11

is for them the least of their troubles . Moving in with parents is often no t
possible, or if possible, not always good . 33
Another inauspicious side of marrying in the Soviet Union, other tha n
haste and immaturity, used to be the drab way in which marriages wer e
registered, which they must be to have legal effect . "Only marriage registere d
in state civil registration offices create the rights and obligations o f
spouses . " 34

Beginning with the first Wedding Palace in Leningrad in 1959, th e

authorities have tried to make the wedding a more meaningful substitute fo r

religious ceremonies, as part of its general campaign promoting Soviet secula r
rituals . " 35

Ceremony or no ceremony, ZAGS registration offices are enjoine d

please not to open their books for registering marriages at times when divorce s
also are being registered . 3 6
After the registration of marriage, with or without a ceremony, th e
newlyweds must adjust to each other's outlooks on marriage, and on the exten t
to which it is an exclusive, special, important part of their lives .
New Value s
"New values" does not mean that these outlooks were unheard of unti l
recently in the USSR . Rather, it means that these new outlooks, onc e
considered unconventional among younger people before and during marriage ,
have become a part of the new Soviet outlook on life, at least in today' s
generations of teen-agers and younger married couples no longer touched b y
familist traditions still strong in the Caucasus, Central Asia, and among non European indigenous families in the Russian Republic .
Near the end of our opening scene, the anniversary guests turn fro m
arguments over whether infidelity is inherent in humans or the product o f
"looseness and irresponsibility," to toast a glowingly happy young couple, th e
12

parents of two children, and their recent arrival, Nastenka . The husband ,
Valya, is the son of the celebrants of the silver wedding . His madonna-lik e
wife, Masha, is cradling Nastenka in her arms . But the narrator realizes tha t
Valya cannot be Nastenka's father becuase her eyes are brown, his and Masha's ,
blue .
As the scene ends, Masha senses the narrator's suspicion . She lowers he r
eyes for a split second "and the light in them goes out . "
The Mashas of this world, and all the other bearers of new values abou t
sex and marriage (again, not literally new, but new in their conventionality )
become grist for the mill of the recently revived Soviet sciences of sexolog y
and sociology, notably for Igor Kon of Leningrad, who works in both fields .
Kon's analysis puts changes in Soviet mores squarely in the context o f
"cultural change" universal in all industrialized countries, socialist an d
capitalist . In both there has been a loss of sexual inhibitions in dress ,
speech, and emotional self-expression . 37

The family sociologist Kharchev ,

part-scientist and part moralist still, in what he writes, sees all of thi s
loss of inhibition among Soviet youth as a result of "a sharp deterioration i n
the conditions of socialization of the younger generation," in modern urba n
life .38

Both Kon and Kharchev see a growing contradiction between th e

acceptance of extra-marital sex by both men and women, as Kon says at a n

earlier age than in the past, on the one hand, and the lamentable state o f
education on sex and marriage in the past, on the other . 39

Kon counters hi s

adversaries, the opponents of sex research and education in sex, with th e

ripostes, that to understand is not to condone, that Marx and Engels inveighe d
against "philistine false modesty" and that as Goethe said, "what man does no t
understand he does not control . " 40

The separation of sex from marriage is a

13

Western concept, but is happening in the USSR . Only 7 percent of a sample o f

3721 respondents in 18 higher schools across the USSR associated their sexua l
intimacies with prospective marriage . The rest had sexual relations out o f
love, for pleasure, for emotional closeness . 41

There is a lot of drinking a t

youth gatherings and parties . That, too, washes away inhibitions . 42

But ,

incidentally, nothing washes away the inhibitions even of the sexologists ,

when it comes to homosexuality and lesbianism . In print homosexuality i s
something in the criminal code as a felony, and then only between men . 43
The analysts do discuss the high rates of pre-marital conception of firs t
born children among younger women . Younger or older, most women know little o r
nothing about contraceptives . 44

Besides, they don't trust Sovie t

contraceptives and find them inconvenient and hard to get . The authorities may
stilll need to be convinced that the birthrate does not depend on th e
availablity of contraceptives anymore . 45

In the end, many women resor t

to abortions . Twenty percent of all abortions in 1963 were had by unmarrie d

women . The rest of the women become single parents or marry before or afte r
the birth of their child . In Perm', a Urals industrial town of nearly a
million inhabitants, one survey showed 32 .5 percent of all babies to be
conceived extra-maritally : 12 .5 percent to unmarried mothers, 19 .6 percent t o
mothers marrying before or after the birth of their child . Among young wome n
17-19 years old, 52 .9 percent of their firstborn children were conceived
before marriage, and 29 .2 percent of the children conceived before marriage b y
women between 20 and 24 years old . 46
The connection for the Soviet researchers is clear . A revolution in mores
and pre-marital conduct has promoted high rates of pre-marital conception s
among young women entering marriage . But pre-marital pregnancy is a "hig h
14

risk" factor . It shortens courtship and pre-marital adjustment, it put s

financial burdens on young couples , 47 to say nothing of the element o f
compulsion in such a situation . 48
One way out of all this for the Soviet equivalent of the moral majority ,
among researchers and writers on the subject, is to return to the strict mora l
code of pre-marital chastity, fidelity and marriage as a lifelong union uphel d
by Russian peasant ancestors . People like Kon and even colleagues mor e
ideological in their writing argue that this is impossible . In any event, one
of the writers argues, not the moral code held the peasant family together, bu t
what that code reflectedthe economic indispensibility of the family an d
children as a productive unit . 49
Economic development and past Soviet policies both have undermined th e
economic and religious foundations of the large, stable family . Persona l
happiness and satisfaction no less than custom and need define the value o f
marriage to Soviet spouses of today . Its stability depends in part on th e
satisfaction of their needs and their demands as individuals .
Spouses' Needs and Demand s
Over and over again one hears in the Soviet Union : the family for most o f
us is no longer a place where we fulfill economic needs and religous morality .
Marriage and the family we value, rather, in terms of how they fulfill ou r
personal needs for emotional gratification and a comfortable home life . 50
No less a theme is many women's demand for equality of satisfaction i n
family life, and their intolerance of husbands who are dunkards or indifferen t
husbands or fathers . 51

An indication of women's declining dependence on men i s

the high proportion not only of women among divorce petitioners but also o f
mothers . Among the roughly two thirds of females among urban petitioners ,
15

three quarters of them have minor children . It appears that at least half o f
the court divorces in rural areas are initiated by women . Their income from
farm work and garden plots fortifies their growing sense of independence an d
self-reliance, to say nothing of the war years when women, children and old me n
kept the villages and farms going . 5 2
For many women, as men, marriage is no longer a focus of total or lifelon g
personal commitment . Among a sample of Leningrad women married 3-7 years, 4 0
percent accepted their husband's infidelity as "fully possible" and, no less ,
their own right to an affair with a man they fancied other than thei r
husband . 53

The author of a popularized book on marriage deplores the fact tha t

divorce has become fashionable, even "prestigious ." It shocked him no less to
catch sight in "a solid institution professional preoccupied with problems o f
divorce" the slogan "Divorce--Blessing or Misfortune," and to hear a colleagu e
lecture on divorce as part of the "inevitable process" of the "adaptation o f
the family ." 54
Women's growing sexual and emotional emancipation, writes a distinguishe d
sociologist and the country's leading non-medical sexologist, "heightens thei r
demands for a satisfying sex life . As a result they are more frequently
dissatisfied with it, and for that reason more ready to contemplate divorce . " 55
The impressive fact that more women than men possess college diploma s
creates problems too . As did the women in Marilyn Rueschmeyer's interview s
with dual-career families in the U .S ., so do Soviet women find themselves "tor n
between public duties and family ones ." Combining them puts a heavy strain o n
psychic and physical resources . S6

The head of a district bank wrote The

Literary Gazette recently to advise professional women not to accept promotio n

to a leading post in administration, science or the arts unless prepared t o
16

give up family life, and unless "there is a reliable backup on the home fron t
in the form of parents or relatives ." The author of the response to thi s
letter from "L . I ." confessed that she saw no sure solution to the problem o f
the place of women in contemporary society ." Who is the happier of two
sisters she knows, she asks, the older sister devoted to a world renowne d
scholar and their four children, or the younger sister devoted to her career a s
a world famous singer, divorced, and raising her daughter alone ?
"L . I ." writes on : "Sometimes one may read about women for whom everything
is wonderful at work and at home, everything is in order, comfortable, th e
children get only fives ("A's"), etc . Forgive me . I don't believe it . For
one to devote oneself to work, someone must be covering the home front ." Th e
commentator in turn shared L . I .'s disbelief . "I must admit," she responds ,
"that I also don't believe much in such idyllic harmony (even when "the hom e
front is well covered") when it comes not to rank and file blue collar an d
white collar women but women in leadership posts or highly creative women o f
unusual talent . . ." 57
A photograph in an article on wedding ceremonies shows a groom carryin g
his bride in his arms and pausing before three strips laid out on the carpet .
The strip to the left is marked "patriarchy ." The strip to the right is marked
"matriarchy ." The strip in the middle is marked "mutuality," and is the on e
down which the groom is supposed to carry his new wife . 58
But family role models are no longer clear, as they were in the days whe n
the husband was "head of the family, breadwinner and determiner of its socia l
status," and the wife was "keeper of the hearth, mistress of the household an d
upbringer of the children . " 59

The popular literature, especially that writte n

by women, extols equality in family decisions and obligations . Article 53 o f

17

the Soviet Constitution proclaims that "spouses are fully equal in famil y
relations ." True, the younger the family, the more likely there is to be an
equal division of authority in it . 60

But we saw earlier that newlyweds ofte n

disagree on the subject of headship in the family and on women's equal right t o
devote themselves to their careers . In its greeting to women on Women's Day ,
the Central Committee of the CPSU emphasizes women's essential contributio n
both to the economy and to the family . "Women are justly called the soul o f
the family," it intoned in 1982 . "Raising your children as idealistic, work loving, honest people, you train the country's worthy and reliable next shift . "
The one model individual advanced in the greeting is that of the devote d
mother of the late Secretary General, Leonid Brezhnev, that is, a woman of th e
generation of great grandparents . 61

It is unlikely that many Soviet women have

obtained a clear picture of their social roles from the contradictory rol e
models presented them in the Soviet press .
A visit to "Academic Town" of the Siberian Branch, USSR Academy o f
Sciences, outside Novosibirsk, left an impression that senior scientists' wive s
generally were content to focus their lives on their comfortable homes, ten d
the garden and wash their husbands' shirts . The head of one institute ther e
said that his daughter and her friends saw things differently . They wanted t o
make their careers, not simply to support their husbands' . Living conditions
in Academic Town are relatively privileged, and the population relativel y
stable . Yet for every two marriages entered in the ZAGS registry of Academic
Town there is one divorce--at a rate only slightly lower than is the ratio o f
divorces to marriages in nearby Novosibirsk . 62
Research in Moscow prompts the conclusion that the one material facto r
where conceivable change in the near future could increase family stability an d

18

low divorce rates is the acievement of a division of household labo r

satisfactory to both wives and husbands . Only this outcome can reduce wha t
both American and Soviet researchers find to be an increase in family tension s
when women go out to work . 63

Of the happily married women, in stable familie s

in the Moscow survey, 14 .3 percent were dissatisfied with the househol d

division of labor . Of the unhappily married women in unstable families in th e
Moscow survey, 50 percent were dissatisfied with the household division o f
labor . Another source of household burdens on the marriage other than lack o f
help to the housewife can be the great difficulty of obtaining a babysitter s o
that the married couple may go out on their own together in their free time .
Parents remain the chief source of help with babysitting . Hence the researche r
suggests that housing allocations allow for parents to live near their marrie d
children (something the children want), and where that is not possible, for th e
government to assist in establishing babysitting cooperatives . 64

Rodzinskai a

comes to the important conclusion that no increase in the standard of livin g

will of itself contribute to stabilizing the family . What will do it is th e
spouses' capacity for harmonious cooperation, mutual understanding an d
adjustment as well as outside help from parents or services in caring for youn g
children at home during the evenings or weekends when the spouses wish to g o
out together . 6 5
As it is now, the typical Soviet woman works virtually a "second shift" a t
home, in addition to her stint at the workplace . On the one hand, Soviet wome n
are just about fully employed . On the other, they carry out a stil l
disproportionate share of the difficult task of keeping house in the Sovie t
Union . The double burden falls particularly heavily on working wives with on e
or more children . They spend approximately twice the time on homemaking tha t
19

their unmarried sisters do, and more than twice the time on the average, tha n
their husbands . 66

There are professional families know to this writer wher e

the husbands do more than their equal share of housekeeping and parenting . But
repeated results of Soviet research and a total of two years spent in th e
Soviet Union convince this writer that my helpful friends are in the minority ,
as yet . Husbands often take the "sparrow's share" of the work themselves ,
leaving the lion's share to their increasingly tired, nervous and prematurel y
aging wives . 67

When Soviet (and not only Soviet) women's liberation in dail y

life matches their liberation under law, the family will come closer to a ne w
basis of harmony and stability .

Conclusion s
One senses behind the breakdowns and divorces the influence of change s
which lie beyond the reach of either superficial palliatives or lega l
compulsion . It is much easier to forbid a family to open a private stor e
or service enterprise or to crush human rights or feminist groups than it is t o
compel spouses to stay together who do not want to . Spouses' assertion o f
individual choice appears to spring from irreversible changes in the famil y
milieu : the loss of the old firm economic communal and religious bonds tying
generations and spouses together, and the virtually total involvement of wome n
in work beyond the family in the Soviet Union, outside certain enclaves o f
tradition in areas of indigenous, non-European settlement in Central Asia an d
the Caucasus .
These changes and the permeation of new values out from an avant garde an d
from other industrialized nations, especially in Soviet cities but also eve r
more in the villages too, have wrought changes also in the psychology of me n
and women as lovers, husbands, and wives . A lifelong commitment to marriag e
20

and one family has been devalued, divorce made conceivable, even acceptable o r
welcome, to ever more people . An ever higher priority is given to th e
satisfaction of personal needs in marriageand outside marriage or in a ne w
marriage, if need be . As women have become more independent economically an d
psychologically, they have put much higher demands on their husbands and thei r
marriages and now take the lead in initiating divorces .
Soviet researchers will be the first to admit that they have yet t o
develop a viable "theory of marital conflict ." As do some U .S . analysts,

all

Soviet sociologists state, at least in print, that the present troubles of th e

Soviet family are transitional, as "survivals" of old patriarchalism an d
crudeness fade and new ideals have yet fully to take hold . 68

The family i s

adapting not disintegrating . The reason the Soviet regime is concerned is tha t
the longer the adaptation takes, the more demographic damage will be wrought b y
divorce and breakup . Also, in both the U .S . and the USSR, predictions abou t
the family depend on one's viewpoint . Traditionalists like the U .S . Mora l
Majority, or the ethnologists in the USSR nostalgic for the old peasant famil y
bonds, see two alternatives : either return to old ways or the end of the famil y
as a viable social unit, with grievous social consequences . Empiricists in
both countries expect the family to adapt to its new environment . As a
prerequisite they see the need for a new level of preparation and knowledg e
about marriage among newlyweds and a new consensus over the meaning of equalit y
for men and women in modern life .

21

Notes

1. Peter Juviler, "Communist Morality and Soviet Youth," Problems o f

Communism, X, 3, (May-June 1961), 16-24 ; Harold Swayzee, Political Control o f
(Cambridge, Mass . : Harvard University
Literature in the USSR, 1946-1959,
Press, 1962), 71-266 ; Max Hayward and Edward L . Crowley, Soviet Literature i n
the Sixties (New York : Praeger, 1964) .
2. Christopher S . Wren, "Sexual Revolution in Soviet Straining Stric t
Morality," The New York Times, September 25, 1977 .
3. Fundamentals of Legislation of the USSR and Union Republics o n
Marriage and the Family, June 27, 1968 in Vedomosti Verkhovnogo Soveta SSSR ,
27 (1968), item 241, and the revisions of October 9, 1979 in Ibid ., 42 (1979) ,
item 696, hereinafter referred to as Fundamentals, Article 1, part 2 ; A .G .
Kharchev, Brak i sem'ia v SSSR (2nd ed . ; Moscow, 1979), 51-54, 157, 176-81 ,
231-32 ; K .K . Bazdyrev, Prostoe uravnenie : myzh + zhena = sem'ia (M .V .
Statistika, 1981) 7 .
4. H . Kent Geiger, The Family in Soviet Russia
University Press, 1968) .

(Cambridge, MA : Harvar d

5. V .I . Perevedentsev, "Vosproizvodstvo naseleniia i sem'ia,"

SI
(Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia),
2 (1982), 80-88 ; V .A . Sysenko ,
Ustoichivost' braka (M . : Finansy i statistiki, 1981), 105-110, 139 ; "Vazhnai a
problema sovetskoi sotsiologicheskoi nauki," SI, 2 (1979), 3-10 ; Pete r
Juviler, "The Urban Family and the Soviet State," in The Contemporary Sovie t
City, ed . by Henry W . Morton and Robert C . Stuart (Armonk, NY : M .E ._ Sharpe ,
1983) .
6. Vladimir Soloukhin, "Na dachu s'ezhalis' gosti," Nedelia, 3 (1982) .
7. Pavel Ul'iashov, "Gde zhe vy, muzhchiny?" Pravda, June 7, 1982 . O n
U .S . professionals' conflicts of priorities, see Marilyn Rueschemeyer ,
Professional Work and Marriage : An East-West Comparison (New York : St .
Martin's Press, 1981) .
8. Vera S . Dunham, In Stalin's Time : Middleclass Values in Soviet Fictio n
(NY : Cambridge University Press, 1976), 34-5, 81-4, 212-24, 217 .
9. Mikhail Stern with August Stern,

Sex in the USSR

(NY : Times Books ,

1980), 42 .
10. Peter Juviler, "Marriage and Divorce," Survey, 48 (1963), 111 .
11. Ibid .
12. Narkhoz v 1979godu (Narodnoe khoziastvo SSSR v 1979godu (M . :
Statistika, 1980), 65 . Divorce rates in Moscow were 3 .8 in 1959, or 3 .5 time s
the national rate .
V .S . (Vestnik statistiki), 1 (1965), 93 .

22

13. Juviler, Marriage and Divorce, 110 .

14. Edict of December 10,
item 225 .

1965 .

Vedomosti

Verkhovnogo Soveta SSSR,

11 9

(1965),

15. A . G . Kharchev,
issledovaniia (M . : Nauka,
Nauka, 1979) .

Brak

sem'ia

SSSR :

1964) ; A . G . Kharchev,

opyt sotsiologicheskogo
Brak i sem'i v SSSR (M . :

16. Narkhoz1922-1972 (M . : Statistika, 1972), 9 ; Narkhoz v1979godu, 36 ;

Narkhoz v1984godu (M . : Statistika, 1 985) . 33 .

17. V .S . 12 (1975), 85-87 .

18. V .S . 12 (1980), 67 ; William K . Stevens, "Texas Cities Lead U .S . i n
the Rate of Divorces," The New York Times, November 10, 1980 .
19. N . E . Chistiakova, "Vosproizvodstva naseleniia," in Demografiiai
ekologiia krupnogo goroda (L : Nauka Leningradskoe otdelenie, 1980), 22 ; A . G .
Volkov, "Sem'ia kak faktor izucheniia demograficheskoi situatsii," SI, 1
(1981), 38 . The divorce rate of the USSR in 1974 was 2 .9, in the RSFSR 3 .5 ,
the Caucasus republics 1 .1 and the four republics of what is now calle d
Central Asia, 1 .2 . Lowest ratios of divorce to marriage, 12 .3 percent, were
in Central Asia . V .S . 12 (1975), 85-87 . See also A . G . Vishnevskii and A . G .
Volkov, eds ., Vosproizvodstva naseleniia SSSR (M . : Finansy i statistika ,

1 983), 211 .
20. V . A . Sysenko, "Razvody : dinamika, motivy, posledstviia," SI,

(1962), 101-102 .
21. According to the USSR Supreme Court, 67 .6 percent of suitors fo r
divorce are women . S . I . Gusev, " Rassomtrenie sudami del o rastorzheni i
braka," SGiP (Sovetskoe gosudarstvo i pravo), 6 (1981), 50-58 . On motives o f
blue and white collar divorcees, see Sysenko, " Razvody . . .," 102 .
22. Ibid .
23. Kharchev, Brak i sem'ia v SSSR (1979), 22 8-30, 343 .
24. T . A . Gurko, "Vliianie dobrachnogo povedeniia na stabilnosti molodo i
sem'i," SI, 2 (1982) ; 90 .
Couples were questioned April to June 1981 when
applying for marriage licenses in Moscow's Wedding Palace and ZAGS registr y

offices .
25. Among
divorced knew
percent knew
Kharchev, Brak

a sample of 342 students and engineers 71 percent of thos e

their spouses less than a year : of those not divorced, 7 1
their spouses more than a year, before getting married .
i sem'ia v SSSR (1979), 217 .

26. Elena Mushkina "Sovet da liubov'!" Nedelia, 12 (1983) .

27 . A . Severina, " . . . No sem'ianinom byt' obiazan," Nedelia, 3 (1982) .

23

28 . For the USSR, percentages of marriages divorced in 1980 which an d

lasted less than a year--3 .5, 15 .7 after 1-2 years, 37 .9 after 3-4 years, 27 . 3
V .S . 1 (1981), 74 .
But these figures overstate the duratio n
after 5-9 years .
of marriage owing Co the delay between breakup and registration of divorce .
In Belorussia, 33 .1% o f
Gurko, "Vliianie dobrachnogo povedennia . . .," 89 .
couples divorced after less than a year of marriage, 33 .1 after 1-4 years ,
16 .6 after 5-9 years . V . Perevedentsev, 270millionov (M . : Statistika, 1982) ,

23 .
29 . Thornes and Collard, Who Divorces?
dobrachnogo povedeniia . . .," 91 .

(1979), cited in Gurko, "Vliiani e

30. Ibid ., 90-92 . 78 percent of grooms and 89 percent of brides favore d

equal authority, in four percent of couples, both favored an authoritaria n
family .
31. Marilyn Rueschemeyer, Professional Work and Marriage, 71-111 .
32. V . Drobotov, "Discussing an Urgent Problem : An Apartment for th e
Newlyweds," Sovetskaia Rossiia, February 14, 1979, Abstr . in DCSP, 31, 8
(March 21, 1979), 13 .
33. Severina, " . . . No semianom byt' obiazan" ; K . Savichev, "Dumaem o
kazhdoi sud'be," Pravda, March 17, 1978, cited in Kharchev, Brak i sem'ia v

SSSR (1979), 22 9 .
In villages and new settlements, a n
34. Fundamentals, Article 9, part 3 .
official of the local Soviet performs the functions of ZAGS .
traditsii i obychai (Rostov : I\d .
35. M . N . Kulazhnikov, Pravo,
Rostovskogo Universiteta, 1972) ; N . M . Zakovich, Sovetskaia obriadnost' i
dukhovnaia kul'tura (Kiev : Naukova Dumka,
1980) ; V . E . Ostrozhinskii ,
Obriadnost' v nashei zhizni (M . : Izd . pout . lit ., 1980) ; V . A . Rudnev ,
Obriadnye narodnye i obriady tserkovnye (L . : Lenizdat, 1982) .
On model civi l
ceremony with patriotic overtones, see V . G . Sinitsyna, Nashi prazdniki :
sovetskie, obshchegosudarstvennye, trudovye, voinskie, molodezhnye i semeinobytovye prazdniki, obriady, ritualy (M . : Izd . polit . lit ., 1977) 140-41 . O n
selective preservation of folk ritual in weddings, see Mushkina, "Soviet d a
liubov'!" and G . V . Zhirnova, Brak i svad ' ba russkikh gorozhan v proshlom i
nastoiashchem (M . : Nauka, 1980) .
36. It used to be not unknown for ZAGS registrations to take place in a n
entryway to a shoemaking shop, to a village Soviet or collective far m
administration, and open to register marriages at the same time as deaths an d
divorces . Kulazhnikov, Pravo, traditsii i obychai, 126 .

37 - I . S . Kon, "0 sotsiologicheskoi . . .," 114-15 .

38 . Kharchev, Brak i sem'ia v SSSR (1979), 116-17 .
39 - Ibid ., 207 ; Kon, "0 sotsiologicheskoi . . .," 114-15 .
24

40. Ibid ., 114.

41. lbid., 116-17 .
42. Kharchev, Brak i sem'ia v SSSR (1979) .
43. Article 121 of the RSFSR Criminal Code specifies up to rive years '
deprivation of freedom for homosexual relations between men, up to eight year s
sentence if they are by violence . Ugolovnyi kodeks RSFSR (M . : Iuridicheskai a
literatura, 1978) .
44. Kon, "0 sotsiologicheskoi interpretatsii . . .," 120 citing A . Antonov ,
Sotsiologiia rozhdaemosti (M . : Statistika, 1980), 31 .
45. V . A . Borisov, Perspektivy rozhdaemosti (M . : Statistika, 1976) . 166 -

176 .
46. M . Tol'ts, "Kharakteristika nekotorykh komponentov rozhdaemosti v
bol'shom gorode," in Demograficheskii analiz rozhdaemosti, ed . D . I . Valente i
(M . : Statistika, 1974), 46-51 .
47. Gurko, "Vlianie dobrachnogo povedeniia . . .," 91 .
48. Kharchev, Brak i sem ' ia v SSSR (1979), 206 .
49. Bazdyrev, Prostoe uravnenie,
interpretatsii . . .," 120 .

77-78 ;

Kon, "0 sotsiologichesko i

50. V . A . Sysenko . Ustoichivost' braka : problemy, faktory, usloviia (M . :

Finansy i statistika, 1981), 8-9, 109-17 ; A . G . Kharchev and M . S . Matkovskii ,
Sovremennaia sem'ia i ee problemy : Sotsial'no-demograficheskoe issledovani e
(M . : Statistika, 1978), 9, 12 .
51. S . Golod, "Sotsial'no-psikhologicheskie i nraystvennye tsennostst i
sem'i," in Podrostaiushchee pokolenie, ed . by D . I . Valentei et al . (M .
Statistika, 1981), 49-54 ; Z . A . Iankova, "Razvitie lichnosti zhenshchiny v
sovetskom obshchestve," SI, 4 (1975), 43, 46 .
52. See Gusev, note 21 . According to the same survey made by the USS R
Supreme Court, 77 .4 percent of the women among persons initiating divorce ha d
children . In a sample of rual divorce cases women initiated about half . V .
P . Kolokol'nikov, "Brachno-semeinye otnosheniia v srede kolkhoznog o
krest'ianstva," SI, 3 (1976), 83 .
53. Kharchev, Brak
Prostoe uravnenie, 88 .

i sem'ia v SSSR(1979),

199 .

See also Bazdyrev ,

54. Ibid ., 79 .
55. Kon, "0 sotsiologicheskoi interpretatsii . . .," 118 . Re cites also A .
M . Sviabashch, L . Ia . Verb, Z . V . Rozhanovskii, "0 roll_ konsul'tatsii p o
voprosam semeinoi zhizni i ukrepleniia sem'ia," in Sem'ia v sistem e
25

nravstvennogo vospitaniia : Aktual'nye problemy vospitaniia podrostka (M . :

Pedagogika, 1 979), 218 .
L .'s letter,
56. Op .cit . n . 42 and on L .
zhenshchinoi--veliki .i trud, " LG, March 30, 1983 .

Silva

Kaputikain ,"Byt'

57. Ibid .
58. Mushkina, "Sovet da liubov' . "
59. Gurko, "Vlianie dobrachnogo povedeniia . . .," 89 .
60. Peter H . Juviler, "The Soviet Family in Post-Stalin Perspective," i n
The Soviet Union Since Stalin, ed . by Stephen F . Cohen, Alexander Rabinowitch ,
Robert Sharlet (Bloomington, Ind . : Indiana U . Press, 1980), 240-41 .
61. Pravda, March 6, 1982 .
62. Figures given this writer by the "Academy Town" ZAGS registry offic e
in 1981 showed a divorce/marriage ratio of 0 .45 for "Academic City" and 0 . 55
for Novosibirsk .
63. Kharchev, Brak i sem'ia v SSSR (1979), 157-58, 219 ; F . Evan Nye an d
Lois W . Hoffman, The Employed Mother in America (Chicago : Rand McNally, 1963) .
64. I . Iu . Rodzinskaia, "Material'noe blagosostoianie i stabil'nost '
sem'i," SI, 3 (1981), 106-112 .
65. Ibid ., 111 .
66. Perevedentsev, 270millionov, 78 .
67. Iurii Riurikov, "Liubov' i sem'ia segodnia : ostrye i sporny e
voprosy," Molodoi kommunist, 10 ( 1 975), 93-94 .
See also, e .g ., Gai l
Warshafsky Lapidus, ed ., Women, Work, and Family in the Soviet Union, (Armonk ,
NY : M . E . Sharpe, 1982), xxxii-xl ; 165-239 ; A . G . Kharchev and S . I . Golod ,
Professional'naia rabota zhenshchiny i sem'ia (Leningrad : Nauka Leningradsko e
otdelenie, 1971) .
68. On the decline of the family haven for child rearing, and protection ,
see Christopher Lasch, Haven in a Heartless World : The Family Besieged (NY :
Basic Book, 1977, 1979) ; Victor C . Vaughan and T . Berry Brazelton, eds ., Th e
Family--Can It Be Saved (Chicago : Yearbook Medical Publishers, 1976) answe r
yes- if . . . . ; Sar A . levitan and Richard S . Belous look to adaptation of th e
family in What's Happening to the American Family? (Baltimore : Jonhs Hopkin s
U . Press, 1981) .
For A . G . Kharchev's prediction of a higher type of famil y
in the USSR, though not without difficulty, see his Brak is sem'ia v SSS R
(1979) and note the greater cautiousness and tempering of utopianism a s
compared with the 1964 edition .

26