The Lithuanian Family in its – European Context, 1800 1914 DaliaLeinarte The Lithuanian Family in its European Context, – 1800 1914 Marriage, Divorce and Flexible Communities DaliaLeinarte VytautasMagnusUniversity Kaunas,Lithuania ISBN978-3-319-51081-1 ISBN978-3-319-51082-8(eBook) DOI10.1007/978-3-319-51082-8 LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2017938018 ©TheEditor(s)(ifapplicable)andTheAuthor(s)2017 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher,whetherthewholeorpartofthematerialisconcerned,specificallytherightsof translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,electronicadaptation,computersoftware,orbysimilarordissimilarmethodology nowknownorhereafterdeveloped. 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Coverimage©DeLuan/AlamyStockPhoto Printedonacid-freepaper ThisPalgraveMacmillanimprintispublishedbySpringerNature TheregisteredcompanyisSpringerInternationalPublishingAG Theregisteredcompanyaddressis:Gewerbestrasse11,6330Cham,Switzerland To Dalia,Emilija,Nicolas and Gilles P REFACE This book reaches readers at a time when the paradigmatic framework of the 1960s–1970s on the essential differences in marriage and household structures in North-Western and Eastern Europe is undergoing transfor- mation.1 Industrialisation and urbanisation alone were not capable of changing traditional household and marriage patterns. The East and West typologisation is being replaced by the methodological approach that the variety of family systems existed throughout Europe and these weredeterminedbyexternalfactors.2Militaryconflictsandthechangein political regimes not only brought about sexual violence, and an increase indivorceandinfanticide,butalsooftenintroducednewfamilyideologies and led to transformations in family behaviour.3 The fundamental ques- tion is, how did families in the past respond to social upheavals and economic reforms as well as policies of state and religious institutions? This question is especially important for the understanding of family behaviour in Eastern Europe, where due to drastic changes new marital behaviouroftenmaskedthedominantfamilysystems.AsAndrejsPlakans put it, “From the last decades of the eighteenth to the end of the nine- teenth centuries, virtually every generation of Eastern European rural people had to incorporate in its life some kind of unprecedented change (...) which affected everydayaffairs.”4 This book investigates family life in nineteenth-century European terri- toriesoftheRussianEmpirewithinthemethodologicalinquirynotedabove. Giventheoftenrestrictivelawsandpolicies—manorialrightsandserfdomup to1861,thepervasiveroleoftheChurchandabsenceofcivilmarriageand divorce, inaddition to deep-rooted customary practices—how did women vii viii PREFACE andmeninLithuaniamanagetonormaliseandsolvetheproblemsoftheir family life? The book reveals that it was possible through the adoption of unofficial, and often illegal, solutions. It explores the way in which the peasant community in the nineteenth-century Lithuanian society resorted tounsanctionedmaritalbehaviour.Cohabitation,bigamyandleviratemar- riages,amongothers,practicedinordertorespondtotheexternalobstacles thathadanimpactonthefamilylife. Up until now there have been no comprehensive investigations in English that examine the historical development of marriage and divorce in Lithuania during tsarist times. This historiographical gap has been partially filled by studies examining the family in central Russia and the three Baltic provinces of the tsarist empire. However, we must take into account the many particularities of marital behaviour in different regions of theEuropean partofthe Empire (Figs.1and 2). ThisbookcoversthecasestudyofthetwolargestLithuanianprovinces, theKaunasandVilniusprovinces.ThePolish–LithuanianCommonwealth, formallytheKingdomofPolandandtheGrandDuchyofLithuania,which was dissolved in 1795, was the largest empire in the sixteenth century Europe. Subsequently, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was incorporated into Russia in 1795 and was part of the tsarist Empire until 1914. In 1801, Lithuania underwent a division into two provinces (guberniyas): Lithuanian Vilnius (Vilna, Wilno) and Lithuanian Gardin (Grodno). The period of1842–1915saw Lithuania being divided intotwo administrative units,thatofKaunas(Kovno)andtheVilniusprovinces(Fig.3).In1867, Suvalkai (Suwalki) province, which was part of Poland until 1915, was established in the southwestern part of the current Lithuanian territory. In the nineteenth century, approximately 410,789 people inhabited the Lithuaniandistricts(volosts)oftheSuvalkaiprovince.TheKaunasprovince covered 38,400 km2 with a total of approximately 969,369 inhabitants in 1857 (Fig. 4). There were 144 districts with around 25,465 villages. Its inhabitants were predominantly Catholics. In the nineteenth century, the Kaunas province was the largest Catholic province in the entire imperial Russia. The Vilnius province covered 41,907 km2 with a total of approxi- mately 1,314,000 inhabitants (including both areas in Lithuania and Belarus) in1889. According tothe first Russian ImperialCensusof1897, there were around 738,943 inhabitants in the Lithuanian districts of the Vilniusprovince. The main conclusion of this book points to the existence of flexible family strategies in the traditional nineteenth-century Lithuanian PREFACE ix Fig. 1 European part of the Tsarist Empire, second half of the nineteenth century.TheWroblewskiLibraryoftheLithuanianAcademyofSciences,K-796 community. Peasants made decisions that often went against the valid legal regulations, canons and dominant cultural norms. Flexibility and adaptability allowed them to “wait out” unfavourable economic reforms orpoliticalperiods.5Somefamilydecisionsrequiredfundsandsanctioned permission from the Church: in the case of an early death of a spouse, in ordertopreserveacertainhousehold6structureandthefamily’sproperty, farmers often requested dispensation for levirate or sororate marriage. In othercases,peasantswouldadoptortolerateillegalfamilybehavioursuch ascohabitationandbigamy.WhereasreasonsforcohabitationinWestern Europe were usually related to the postponement of marriage, cohabita- tioninLithuaniawastheresultofrestrictivecanonlaws.Flexiblestrategies x PREFACE Fig. 2 European part of the Tsarist Empire, 1911. The Wroblewski Library of theLithuanianAcademyofSciences,K-1175 werealsoextendedtothetreatmentofchildrenborntosinglemothers.In this regard, peasant families could even go to the extent of justifying criminal behaviour: illegitimate children born to single mothers had no place in a farmer’s family and the community would tolerate their early death.Thenineteenth-centuryLithuaniancommunityacknowledgedonly familylife,sounwedsinglesiblingswouldmisstheirpartintheinheritance andwouldthus losetheir socialstatus. The introductory Chapter 1 of this book presents a comparative over- view of family systems, including household structures, marriage and inheritancemodels,divorceandseparation,child-rearing,andnationalistic family ideologies in Europe. The chapter also details the description of archival sources used in this book. They include documents from the Curia of the Samogitian Diocese which cover annullments and dispensa- tions, as well as parishioners’ complaints about the interference of priests in their proposed marriages for the period 1813–1914. Another body of sources consists of files holding marriage annulments and separations in PREFACE xi Fig.3 KaunasandVilniusprovinces.TheWroblewskiLibraryoftheLithuanian AcademyofSciences,K-938 the Kaunas province that were brought before the ecclesiastical court of the Consistory of the Samogitian Diocese in 1853–1914. Significant archival sources come from the so-called “Trials on Depraved Lifestyles” (Дело о блудной жизни) that were also brought before the ecclesiastical court of the Consistory of the Samogitian Diocese. A separate body of sources contains papal encyclicals and sermons given by parish priests in the Kaunas province relating to various matrimonial issues. The book is also based on a broad scope of inventory data from the first half of the nineteenthcentury,whichincludes3,000peasanthouseholds.Thecensus wascarried outin 1847andrecorded19,917people. The second chapter of the book is devoted to the various social phe- nomena associated with marriage in the nineteenth-century Lithuania. It discloses the ostracism experience by single men and women in the nine- teenth-century rural community. Single mothers and their illegitimate