The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1892-12-09
THE WOMEN OF RUSSIA.
Are of as Many Types
as Are Americas Fair
Daughters.

The women Of Russial How shall I de-
scribe them? They are like no other
| women on the face of the globe and still
among their millions they have types of
almost every race of women known to
man. writes Frank G.. Carpenter In the
| NeWdTk Daily Advertiser. In st. Peters
burg you see the fair-haired. blue eyed,
| freckle-faced maidens from Finland
walking the streets side by side with the
~red-haired girls who have been imported
thither from the Caucasus and Georgia.
aud here at Mosco " you see the Tartars,
the Cossacks and the Armenians mixed
together with the other different types of
the eighty provinces of this vast empire.
Along the Volga you will meet different
costumes and different races of women at
every landing place. and the girls of Lit
tie Russia wear different clothes and have
different manners from those of Great
Russia and South Russia. Here in Mos
COW there are a vast umDer of gypsies,
and Russia has the harem of the Moham-
medan, the ~polyandry of the Himalayas
| and all the varied combinations of civil
iZed love and marriage. The pure Rus
| slams look upon marriage much as we do,
| aud of late years the relations OF the sexes
among the upper classes have been almost
as free as they are with Us. The Russian
lady of today has her friends among the
young men of her acquaintance, and
though she rarely goes about without Il
chaperon, she receives her callers in her
own home and her IDEAL marriage is one
of love.
MARRIAGE LAWS.
OF late years the laws of marriage have
been radically changed, and now females
are forbidden to wed except between the
ages OF sixteen and sixty, Men cannot
marry until they are over eighteen nor
after they are eighty, and divorces are
less common In Russia than they are
with us. The Church Of Russia objects
to more h a one marriage. 1t has its
penanceS for second and third marriages,
and "a man who niarrles a fourth time is
excluded from the Holy Communion.
Few marriages are made In the upper
classes without the consent of the par
cuts, and in most cases the woman lg ex-
pected to bring a very respectable dot
with her.
HAIR WORKERS.
The peasant women of Russia are all
hard workers. You see tn EN- everywhere,
in the fields moving and reaping, spadin q
up the ground n doing. III fact. every
thing that man can do. They work In
gangs OF twenty or thirty. and each gang
Of women is usually directed by a man,
who acts as overseer and who keeps them
at their work. They go into the fields
almost as soon as they are old enough to
walk and they work until they are gray
haired. Hard labor soon takes the beauty
out of them and the older women have
faces like leather, full of wrinkles and
furrowed with care. The younger girls
are plump, bright eyed and, In some
cases, pretty.
Marriages among the peasants are made
both on the grounds of convenience and
love. The sexes associate so closely to-
gether in their work and in the villages
chat they have a chance to get thoroughly
acquainted with one another, ahd a good,
strong woman just doubles the working
force Of the man who marries her without
very materially increasing hia expenses.
Neither sex among the PEASANTS spends
much upon dress. rhe worhen wear
nothing but handkerchfefs UPON their
heads while working in the Fields. aud
their feet are generally bar&. In the
summer such shoes as they usR are made
of bark, woven into tbs form Bf slippers
like basket work, ana in the WinLer they
veal great heavy boots of felt upon their
feet.
After the peasants is the nero ~ class,
ADD the women of this class are 2arge
extent different from those of TIL kiIy
or the peasants. They do NOT dc rd
work OF the peasants. nor have 70
y