The Matrimonial Customs and Usages of the Russian People, and the Light They Throw on the Evolution of Marriage The wide historical studies pursued by members of the University of Oxford necessarily include the study of the Slavonic race. The part which this race is beginning to play in the economic and social progress of our time, and the considerable achievements which it has already made in the fields of literature and science have attracted the attention even of those nations whose political interests are supposed not to coincide precisely with those of the Slavs. The Ilchester Lectures were, I believe, founded in order to make known to Oxford students the present and past of this undoubtedly Aryan branch of the human race. A good deal of work has already been done by my predecessors. Professor Thomson, of Copenhagen, by his careful study of the Norman origin of the Russian State, has greatly contributed to unveil even to Russians the mystery of their far-distant past, while Professor Turner, in the course of his brilliant lectures last year, made you acquainted with our best modern novelists. I do not know if my friend, the late Mr W.R.S. Ralston, ever lectured in the Taylor institute, but the accurate and lively accounts he has given of Russian epic poems and popular tales were undoubtedly written under the influence of the same feelings as those which inspired the founder of these lectures.
In England the works of Ralston were the first to deal with the vast field of Slavonic, and more especially of Russian, folk-lore. His chief endeavour was to show the great amount of information which the unwritten literature of Russia contains as to the early stages of religious development. But Russian folk-lore may interest a lawyer as well as a mythologist; its study may enrich comparative jurisprudence with new material not less than comparative mythology. It can no doubt unveil more than one mystery concerning the early state of European family law, and the various modes in which land was held by our remotest ancestors. The first stages in the history of political institutions, and more particularly the part which the common people were called upon in old days to play in the management of public affairs, can be illustrated by the history of Russian folk-motes and Russian national councils, much better than by reference to the short notices left by Caesar or Tacitus of the popular assemblies of the Germans. Russian serfdom, and the history of its abolition, may also be instructive in more than one point, even to those whose chief purpose is to study the origin, the growth, and the abolition of personal servitude in England, France, or Germany.
When I look to the great importance of the modern customs and ancient laws of Russia as regards the comparative history of institutions, I confidently hope to meet on your part with the indulgence which the lecturer needs who addresses his audience in a foreign tongue. I think that the study of Russian legal antiquities may to a certain extent be considered as a necessary appendage of those exhaustive inquiries in Indian and old Celtic institutions for which we are indebted to one of your most celebrated writers, the late Sir Henry Maine. I feel the more pleasure in mentioning his name, as it was by him that my first works in the field of comparative jurisprudence were inspired.
His lectures have found readers in the remotest parts of the world, and have suggested to more than one foreign scholar the idea of re-writing the legal history of his own country.
Although recognising in him the chief representative of the legal school to which I belong, I shall more than once put forward theories which are altogether opposed to his: such an occasion presents itself at once in the study of early Russian family law.
This study will, I have no doubt, throw a clear light on the earliest period in the evolution of marriage -- that of the matriarchate. I insist the more on this point because in England an opinion has been expressed that the customary law of Russia might be expected to give another illustration of the general prevalence of the patriarchal family even in the first stages of social development. Sir Henry Maine has more than once(1*)expressed this opinion, and has found confirmation for it in certain quotations made chiefly from the well-known works of Haxthausen and Mackenzie Wallace. Both these authors, making a large use of the rich ethnographical literature of Russia, have correctly described the prevailing system of Russian joint families, or house communities, and their account may be taken generally as a good illustration of the old patriarchal family of the Germans and Celts. But neither of them had any opportunity of studying in detail the numerous survivals which we still find of a state of things which had nothing in common with agnatism, or even with a firmly established "patria potestas." Such was not, after all, the purpose that they had in view. Theirs was the study of contemporary life in Russian society, and the question of the primitive state of family relations in Russia cannot be settled by reference to works which do not deal with the subject.
Sir Henry Maine was also misled in his survey of Slavonic family law by the well-known Bohemian or Czech poem, "The Trial of the Princess Liuhouscha." This poem he quotes at great length, and he states that it leaves no doubt as to the existence of a sort of undivided family or house-community in the most remote period of Bohemian history. Unfortunately, the poem on which he builds his conclusion is now unanimously declared both by Slavonic and German scholars to be a forgery by the well-known Bohemian philologist, Hanka. It is clear, therefore, that the whole of his theory, so far as it deals with Slavonic law and usage, is based either on facts which concern modern times alone, and have nothing to do with ancient times, or on documents manifestly false.
