Description
Book SynopsisRussia's Great Reforms of 1861 were sweeping social and legal changes that aimed to modernize the country. In the following decades, rapid industrialization and urbanization profoundly transformed Russia's social, economic, and cultural landscape. Barbara Alpern Engel explores the personal, cultural, and political consequences of these dramatic changes, focusing on their impact on intimate life and expectations and the resulting challenges to the traditional, patriarchal family order, the cornerstone of Russia's authoritarian political and religious regime. The widely perceived marriage crisis had far-reaching legal, institutional, and political ramifications. In Breaking the Ties That Bound, Engel draws on exceptionally rich archival documentationin particular, on petitions for marital separation and the materials generated by the ensuing investigationsto explore changing notions of marital relations, domesticity, childrearing, and intimate life among ordinary men and women in impe
Trade Review
Barbara Alpern Engel provides a captivating and well-researched book in this newest addition to her already impressive bibliography. She uses her remarkable knowledge to analyze an archival source specific to the turn of the nineteenth century. In doing so, she details rich, new glimpses into the lives of both women and men, of all social estates, specifically their perceptions of gender roles within one of the most sacred of Russian institutions—marriage.... This should be a staple for all students and scholars of Russian social and legal history.
-- Katie Lynn * Slavic and East European Journal *
Engel examines how Russians of various classes and estates understood marital obligations and the behavior and conditions that were egregious enough to justify loosening the ties. In the process, she examines perceptions of gender roles, how these varied by estate and class, and how attitudes shifted at the end of the nineteenth century.... The cases are fascinating and provide rare insights into Russian domestic life.... Highly recommended.
* Choice *
Table of ContentsIntroduction: Marriage and Its Discontents
1 The Ties That Bound
2 Making Marriage: Romantic Ideals and Female Rhetoric
3 Money Matters
4 Disciplining Laboring Husbands
5 Earning My Own Crust of Bread
6 Cultivating Domesticity
7 The Right to Love
8 The Best Interests of the Child
Conclusion: The Politics of Marital Strife
Appendix A. Archival Sources
Appendix B. Major Cases Used in the Book
Index
