Honor, conscience and chastity: myths and truth about relationships and marriage in the USSR
'18.03.2021'
Source: lady.mail.ru
In Soviet times, as you know, the sky was blue, the sun was bright, the sausage was cheap, and the relationship was perfect. Love and harmony, devotion and chastity, honor and conscience, milk and honey. Not like now. It's even amazing how these people have grown up immoral children who post photos in bikinis on Instagram and go to bed before marriage.
Common sense quietly whispers that people are always the same, writes lady.mail.ru. But parents are sacred, and grandparents are generally a little family legend. We go through black and white photos, where everything is completely mysterious beauties with straight and honest views. We are reviewing films like “Devchat”, where Tosya is amazed how people's noses do not interfere with kissing. And we believe that then everything was different! Is it so?
All couples lived in marriage
“The mother-in-law loves to talk about how she organized a“ fake ”pregnancy. Because "we met, and I was in no hurry to make an offer, but distribution was on the way." I had to go for a trick: they say, honey, you will become a dad. The trick was a success - there was both a wedding and a doll on the hood. And a week later - menstruation, which was presented as a miscarriage. Do not get divorced! Pregnancy tests were not invented, so a similar trick was used among girls of marriageable age.
None of this is your civilian, ugh, cohabitation. Loved - marry. Take away the non-alcoholic wedding and move into a spacious room with high ceilings with a cheerful young husband.
On the subject: Soviet wife: how it was
The truth is that civil marriage in its true meaning is the registration at the registry office. Before the revolution, marriages were ecclesiastical, then religion fell into disgrace, and they began to register like this. Far from everybody was striving for this - it was unusual, and why? They lived and lived for themselves, without any formalities. The Marriage and Family Code of 1926 recognized the actual marriage as fully valid: cohabitation and housekeeping. The value of marriage, legally registered, grew during the war - so that the widow could get money for the deceased breadwinner.
Later, other advantages became relevant: it was easier for the couple to get separate housing. Remember the same "Devchat": either kukui in the hostel to old age, or organize a cell of society. The role played and the distribution after universities - in order not to receive the order “to him to the west, to her in the other direction”, the pair had to be registered.
In the book “Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears,” one of the heroines went to dances in the club of a military university - the fifth-year students who were threatened with distribution were especially active and gallant. After all, being family, they could apply for an apartment. And it was more difficult to find a bride in small garrison towns.
Sex without commitment? What do you!
“My mother’s student friend always said that the“ girl ”would get her husband. Well, in general, formally, he was really her first - at least hang a sheet on the door after the wedding night. Only close friends knew that before marriage she actively practiced all other options for sexual pleasures. Well, a good part of the guys from the hostel. "
“I came to my relatives in the village. They told me about my grandfather - he was a handsome man. And now his sisters, grandmothers are already so old, showed: here Sima lived, she loved Vanechka very much. Here Shura was running after him. My grandfather was then 16 years old, but there were no men left in the village, and the women wanted both love and affection. Everyone looked at it with understanding. "
Well, let's say, married not only for a big and pure love. But kept chastity for the only one. It is funny that by "kept chastity" it was meant "the bride was a virgin." Men were, to put it mildly, permissible. Well, they have such a nature. Leave the war years - there are their laws. But in practice, the conquerors of the virgin lands, and students, and young people were, in general, the same.
True, ostentatious morality struck women hard - “they only walk with such people, but they don't marry,” because not morality at all. And about unequal rights - those who walk, just marry those who were at home and learned to cook soup.
And, by the way, in the book “The Girls,” according to which the film was made, the noses did not bother anyone. And the beautiful Anfisa, for example, refused the last admirer, because she did not want to ruin his life - after the next abortion, the doctors threatened her with sterility.
There was no change and divorces, too
“Great-grandmother once found mom in tears. Has she started to try, is everything okay? A husband does not change? And then, he says, I know the right means. The husband was a reveler, and in the village everyone knows everything about each other. So my great-grandmother tracked where he was going, took a weights from a watch on a chain, and went to break the glass to her mistresses. ”
On the subject: Ten things from the Soviet past that only rich people could afford
In Soviet times, there was a joke on the topic of who among the wives than keeps her betrothed: “German by deed, French by body, Spanish by grace, and Russian by party organization.” It was a harsh and bitter truth. In the late period of the USSR, the fortress of family ties was promoted. It was promoted and propagated as the official ideology.
And it was also believed that the personal life of a citizen is a public matter. Therefore, the traitors were scolded in every possible way at party meetings, were deprived of prizes and generally showed "Kuzkin's mother." Nobody wanted a public shame: they tried to walk quietly to the left, without advertising. And do not get divorced, tossing between two fires. Let us recall the Soviet "Winter Cherry", "Autumn Marathon" or "Forgotten Melody for Flute".
And one more story finally:
“Mom lived in a communal apartment. The most vivid childhood memory is Uncle Yasha and Aunt Zina. He got drunk once a month, on payday. She tied him to a bench as punishment and flogged him with a belt. Then she took him to a room where violent reconciliation followed. Parents plugged their children’s ears. Then for the whole month the spouses blew dust particles off each other. Such are the Soviet-style Fifty Shades of Gray. "
