Tyragetia (Dec 2020)
Marriage union: a variety of ways to create it in the Old Russian state
Abstract
The article is devoted to the characterization of various ways of creating a marriage union in the Old Russian state, including: abduction of a bride by a groom – umychka, buying a bride from her relatives, bringing her by her relatives to the groom’s house, “trial” marriage, other non-church ways of creating marriage unions, and church marriage. It was concluded that in Ancient Russia there were marriage and family customs, canonical norms and regulations of state power, which conditioned the existence in the Old Russian state of a variety of ways to create a marriage union. Traditional marriage rites, formed in a particular area, made it possible to record the moment of the creation of the family and the emergence of marital rights and obligations. Successful implementation by families, created on the basis of marriage and family rites, of the tasks of emotional, moral, intimate and economic nature, the tasks of giving birth and upbringing children did not contribute to the rapid displacement of traditional marriage rites by the wedding rite. Due to the fact that the regulation of marriage and family relations fell into the sphere of state interests only in the context of solving other (stately significant) tasks, marriage and family customs and canonical regulations were determinants of many ways of creating a marriage union in the Old Russian state.
