When a man wants to inspect the bride himself, and the parents grant the request, knowing that she is fair and that they need not be ashamed of her, but the groom, having taken no liking to her, decries her with damaging and injurious words, and thus keeps other suitors away from her,—and the bride’s parents complain to the Patriarch or authorities: these institute an inquiry, and having found the man guilty, marry him to the girl by force; but if he has married another girl before the complaint has been entered, the girl’s disgrace is taken from her by an ukase.
When a man marries off his daughter or sister, and gives her a large dowry in serfs and patrimony, and that daughter or sister, having borne no children, or having borne some who have all died, dies herself,—the dowry is all taken from her husband and is turned over to those who had married her off. But if she leaves a son or daughter, the dowry is, for the sake of her child, not taken from her husband.
Gentle reader! Wonder not, it is nothing but the truth when I say that nowhere in the whole world is there such deception practised with marriageable girls as in the kingdom of Muscovy; there does not exist there the custom, as in other countries, for the suitor to see and sue for the bride himself.
The boyárs and Near People have in their houses 100, or 200, or 300, or 500, or 1000 servants, male and female, according to their dignity and possessions. These servants receive a yearly salary, if they are married, 2, 3, 5 or 10 roubles, according to their services, and their wearing apparel, and a monthly allowance of bread and victuals; they live in their own rooms in the court of the boyár’s house. The best of these married servants are sent out by the boyárs every year, by rotation, to their estates and villages, with the order to collect from their peasants the taxes and rents. The unmarried older servants receive some small wages, but the younger ones receive nothing; all the unmarried servants get their wearing apparel, hats, shirts and boots; the older of these servants live in the farther lower apartments, and receive their food and drink from the kitchen; on holidays they receive two cups of brandy each. The female servants who are widows remain living in the houses of their husbands, and they receive a yearly wage and a monthly allowance of food; other widows and girls stay in the rooms of the boyárs’ wives and daughters, and they receive their wearing apparel, and their food from the boyár’s kitchen.
When these girls are grown up, the boyárs marry them, and also the widows, to some one of their servants to whom they have taken a liking, but sometimes by force. The wedding takes place in the boyár’s hall, according to the rank of the marrying parties; the food and festive dresses are furnished by the boyár. The girls are never married to any person outside the boyár’s court, because both male and female servants are his perpetual serfs. In the boyár’s house there is an office for all domestic affairs, where an account is kept of income and expenses, and all the affairs of the servants and peasants are investigated and settled.
FOOTNOTES:
[121] A division of nobility below the boyárs.
[122] In the front corner, under the holy images.
[123] Bending as far as the girdle.
[124] “The wedding ceremony is as follows: on the Tsar’s side the first order is the father and mother, or those who are in place of his parents; the second order, the travellers,—the chief priest with the cross, the thousand-man, who is a great personage in that procession, and then the Tsar: eight boyárs. The duties of the travellers are as follows: they stay with the Tsar and Tsarítsa at the crowning in church, and at the table occupy higher places than the others; the friends (drúzhka), whose duty it is to call the guests to the wedding, to make speeches at the wedding in the name of the thousand-man and Tsar, and to carry presents; the bride’s maids (svákha) whose duty it is to watch the Tsarítsa, to dress her and undress her; the candleholder, who holds the candle when they get the Tsarítsa ready for the crowning; the breadholders, who carry the bread on litters to and from church (these litters are covered with gold velvet and embroidered cloth and sable furs); the equerry with his suite. The third order is the sitting boyárs, twelve men and twelve women, who sit as guests at the tables, with the Tsar’s parents, but do not go to church with the Tsar. The fourth order is of the court, who attend to the food and drink.”