* COMING OF AGE *

 Life in reminiscences of old people is invariably divided into two halves: before and after marriage. And indeed, not yet subsided the songs and not got the wedding cake staled as the entire way, all way of life is changing dramatically. In which direction? Such a question would have sounded naive and inappropriate.
In such cases, "bad" and "good" categories retreat to the background. Marriage is not fun (although it is, too). It is not a personal whim but a vital natural necessity connected with the new responsibility to the world and with fresh, not yet experienced joys of life. It's as inevitable as, for example, the sunrise or the onset of autumn.
There was no freedom of choice. Only a physical deformity and mental illness released people from the moral duty to marry. But even a moral obligation is not perceived as a duty if a person is morally sane. It may be the duty only for an immoral person. Because to prescribe genuine people's morality, it did not require any written codes of the said "Mirror" or "Flower Garden," where the monastic rules of conduct are collected.
Finally, the dramatized wedding ritual, which lasted several weeks, was completed. Time has come of age. Time to mature is the biggest time span of human life.
 Time after the wedding is the most exciting and hazardous for a new family. The terms "evil eye" or "spell" are considered in the civilized world to belong to superstitions. But it's not a matter of "black magic." The first threads of weak conjugal relationships are easily broken by one unkind word or an angry, contemptuous gaze.
 The psychological adaption of a bride to the world of no longer a stranger's family is not always quick and smooth. Though based on a common tradition, habits, especially the rules, are different in all families and houses. In some, such customs as pancakes to bake thin; in others, they like them thick; in this house, they saw firewood to one length; in another, they do different because there are different stoves, and the stoves are other because the masters who built them are not the same.
 It is difficult for a young woman accustomed to the girl's freedom, parental care, and affection to enter a new life in a new family. About this, the people have composed countless songs:
"You'll come beyond the irrecoverable line, and from that place, you will never come back. Never put on girl's clothes again. Because flowers don't bloom after fall, don't grow grass in winter's snow. Never will you be a maiden again."

A dramatic change of life state, evident in folk songs, is often taken as evidence of Russian women's terrible family situation, of their inequality and oppression. However, the legend of this inequality is fading away from the light touch of folk and literary monuments.

 "Do not worry, dear ones, I will not stay alone; 

if not you, then your friend will belong to me," - publicly and loudly sings a girl at the gathering if the guy starts to think too highly of himself.
  On a failed marriage, there was such a song:
  "Whatever she was, but got married to such a young man but a boor.
  He does not know how to treat me; he goes to a party without saying goodbye.
  And coming back to the gates, ignorant, screaming, and yelling:
 "Unlock wife, wide gate! "
 Oh, how I, young wife guessed, quietly got up, bare feet shoes put on,
  I have locked the gates tight: "Oh, you go sleep, boor, but outside the gates, your soft bed is yes, white snow, your high pillow is the gateway, your warm blanket is the winds of violent, you coloured curtain are the stars countless, yes you strong guards are gray wolves."

 
 That point is that the people to no one had not occurred to oppose a woman to a man, the family to the head of the family, children to parents.
 Neither Avdotya from Ryazan from the epic or historic Martha-Governor's Wife nor Alena (Nekrasov's and Lermontov's) resembles the downtrodden, unequal, or degraded. A historian, Kostomarov, speaking of the "Russian Truth" (the first known set of Russian laws), wrote: "A married woman enjoyed the same legal rights as men. However, for her murder or insult to her, the pay was the equal amount."
 Literacy or illiteracy Rights in Ancient Russia also did not depend on sex. "Princess of Chernihiv Euphrosynia, the daughter of Michael Vsevolodovich, started in Suzdal a school for girls, where they were taught to read, write, and church singing," - said the same Kostomarov, based on the chronicles. Equality and sometimes the superiority of women in the family were due to the economic and moral needs of the Russian national life.
What is the point for the head of the household to beat his wife or keep at bay the entire family? Only a spoiled, stupid man without a king in the head allowed such actions. And if natural stupidity though with a smile but was forgiven, then acquired stupidity (tyranny) was mercilessly derided. A bad reputation of the family tyrant, like the glory of a girl's dishonour, ran "in front of the sled."
 The authority of the head of the family was kept not on fear but on the conscience of the whole family. To maintain this credibility, you must be respected rather than feared. Such respect could be gained only by personal example: hard work, fairness, kindness, and consistency.
 If you remember more about kinship and parent-child love, it becomes clear why younger children "feared" elders. That "fear" for children did not come from fear of physical harm or even punishment but from shame, from the pangs of conscience.
In a good family, one condemning look of a father forced family members to tremble, while in the other, the rod, belt or just his fists were perceived quite indifferently. Moreover, the dominance of brute force and fear of physical pain flourished in deception, the secret mockery of elders and other vices.
     Headship from father to eldest son passes not at once but with the aging of father and son and the accumulation of life experience. So leadership kind of slips bit by bit and is poured down from generation to generation because the nominal head of the family is the grandfather, father of the father. But, still, to all, including the grandfather, it is clear that he is not the head anymore.
 Traditionally, the grandfather still has the first word at the family councils, but it is consultative rather than decisive, and he does not see this as an offence. The owner's father and son clearly show how to share the essence of seniority: one provides a form of rule, the other content. All this is gradually shifted.
 The same goes for the female "half" of the house. Young housewives, with the passing years, become the main hand "at the oven," and hence, "the big one." It happened naturally because the mother-in-law grew old and could not always carry buckets of fodder to the cattle to knead the bread. Once you start to bake bread, you have the key from the flour chest. If you milk cows, you pour milk and churn butter, and the loan must be given out not by the in-laws but by yourself. So, the one who makes better pies will obtain seniority.
For unmarried sisters to stay at home for too long was unnatural. It turns out that marrying younger sons was also necessary, if only because of a crowded house. But is it only a cramped house that shaped this need? Before marrying, the second son's father, grandfather, and eldest son began to think about building a new place for him, but the end of construction would often coincide with the wedding. The two married brothers lived with their families under his father's or grandfather's roof for some time. Women's quarrels, common in such cases, hurried construction.
After gathering help (sometimes double or triple), the father and sons quickly finished building the house for a younger son. The same happened with the marriage of the third and fourth sons unless war or some other scrape with all his impudence was bursting into people's lives.
 Conjugal fidelity was the basis of marital love and the well-being of the whole family. The peasants' wives cried when their husbands were jealous because jealousy meant distrust. It was believed that if a man does not trust, then there is no love. They cried that he did not love, but not because he was jealous.