Vedusiųjų visuomenė: santuoka ir skyrybos Lietuvoje XIX amžiuje - XX amžiaus pradžioje

LTJausmai, kuriuos patiriame galvodami apie šeimą, paprastai būna spontaniški ir stiprūs. To pakanka, kad žmonės domėtųsi visais šeimos gyvenimo aspektais ir istorija apskritai, nors daugeliui kitų istorinių įvykių jie teikia mažai reikšmės. Mokslininkų sukaupti duomenys, analizė ir apibendrinimai papildo iš kartos į kartą perduodamus pasakojimus, todėl skaitytojas priima tyrinėjimus kaip dalelę savo giminės istorijos, lygina su asmenine patirtimi. Ši aplinkybė turi privalumų: šeimos istorijos studijos gali tikėtis platesnio visuomenės, ne vien specialistų dėmesio. Antra vertus, dauguma šiuolaikinių vedybinio gyvenimo, šeimyninių santykių stereotipų susiklostė būtent XIX-XX a. pradžioje, todėl problemos, nagrinėjamos šioje knygoje, padeda suvokti lietuvių visuomenės raidą. [Iš Pratarmės]Reikšminiai žodžiai: Šeima; Santuoka; Vedybos; Skyrybos; Nevedę žmonės; Nesantuokiniai vaikai; Lietuva. Keywords: Family; Marriage; Divorce; Unwed people; Bastards; Lithuania.

ENIn the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Lithuanians were not free to choose to live unmarried if they wanted also to be valued as integral and active participants in society. A family, which was seen first and foremost as an economic arrangement and not a union of two emotionally intimate people, was obligatory for everyone. At that time in Western Europe 15 to 20 percent of women never wed, while in the Baltic states this was true of only about three percent. A family, as an institution, was an economic partnership, where each spouse contributed something and performed specific functions. After the abolition of serfdom and implementation of the Reform of 1861, marriage also became the most reliable and binding way - certainly more so than sale or leasing - of transmitting land. By the end of the nineteenth century, however, a national renaissance inspired new models of family life. The Lithuanian intelligensia created national family projects redirecting the focus of marriage away from economics. Alternatives to the traditional family also came about because the whole society underwent modernization. Many people were leaving Lithuania both to look for a more prosperous life and to protest the kinds of lives their grandparents and parents were leading. Another feature of married life in Lithuania of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was the predominance of the catholic church, which very rarely granted annulments and therefore did not allow people to marry more than once. Most people in unsuccessful unions were forced to divorce illegally, without the acknowledgment of the ecclesiastic court.During the period in question the life circumstances outlined above - such as inevitable and insoluble marriages - determined people's behavior vis-a-vis family life and therefore dictated the contents of this book: Lithuanians' view of the bachelor's life; the legal norms of matrimony; the traditional peasant family concepts of motive, love and happiness; the democratizing tendencies on estates; the age at which marriage was entered into; the ways in which the model of family life changed during the national renaissance; divorces and illegal ways of dissolving marriage. [...]. [From the publication]