Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1877-11-07
Women in Russia.

In the diverse conceptions of women s
claims and functions encountered up
and down the scale of ranks in Russia,
we have the most decisive proof of the
moral dualism between the crust of
refinement and culture superposed by
Catherine III. and the organic structure
of old Muscovy. As regards the high
society of st. Petersburgh, or even the
middle grades of the nobility, or of
civil and military functiOnaries through
out the country, it is certain that the
ladies are at least equal, perhaps super
ior, in breeding and education to the
men. 1t is wholly otherwise in the
trading and farming class, which con-
stitutes the mass of the population, and
whose ideas and customs keep the
impress of Asiaticor b zantine manners.
Indeed, the contempt for the female sex,
and the debased condition of the wife,
subjected to ignominious ceremonies at
the time of her marriage, and to ignoble
treatment on the part of her husband,
are the precise features of indigenous
Russian life which have most shocked
foreign travellers from the sixteenth
century up to our day. 1t is to Herber-
stein, who disclosed to Continental
Europe the interior of Muscovy, that
we owe the familiar story of the Russian
woman who married a German, who
complained of her husbands frigidity,
because he had not once beaten her.
There is a national proverb to the same
effect-"Love your wife as your own
soul, anc beat her like a fur jacket"
"a husbands cuffs leaves no mark"
is another adage put in wife's mouth.
Where such manners are consecrated
by tradition, it is not to be expected
that public OPT Mon should recognize
in blows and maltreatment an adequate
ground of divorce. The Dsodjk cannot
be made to understand how his right
TO chastise his helpmate can be question
ed, and when he is summoned for this
offence before a magistrate serenely
explains that the victim was his wife,
his property. Here and there the popu- |
lar songs bear trace of the griefs which |
in the rough burrows of daily life the |
Russian woman finds it prudent to con-
ceal. cages have rolled away" says |
the poet Nekrasof, "the whole face of |
the earth has frightened, only the SOM
bre lot of the mogjik'S wife God forgets |
to change" And the same poet makes
one of his village heroines say dprop Os
of the enfranchisement of the serfs,
God has forgotten the nook where he
hid the keys of woman's emancipation.
In a word, the wife of the Muscovite
peasant seems TO have been until recen-
tly the slave. of a slave, and to have
borne on her head the whole weight
of double ediflce of servitude. Yet
it may be that to rehabilitate her a
little liberty and comfort would suffice,
and probably the freedom of the serf
will in the end be eomplemented by the
elevation of his companion. Already
in some communes there are CLEANS of
a new order, the mother of adult child
rem, for instance, enjoying a certain
consideration, and the management of
the household being occasionally in
trusted to the widow of the head. The
progress of individualism and the de-
of a sentiment of personal
dignity cannot but enure to the profit
of the female sex, although thus far
in this direction is rather
hope than fact.