Attitudes towards family

Question 1

Initial attitudes

Answer 1

• To replace the traditional family unit with a collective approach to the provision of social support but in the end they agreed that it’s a major force for social stability.
• Encourage women to sexual intercourses
• Provide housing with communal spaces to break up family unit.

Question 2

Family code 1918

Answer 2

• Made divorce easier
• Abortion was legal and creches encouraged
• Gave equal status to registered and unregistered marriages (in 1927)

Results:

• Abortion outnumbered live births 3:1
• Divorce rate. In moscow 50% of marriage would end with divorce 1926
• 1926 post-card divorce allowed

Question 3

The Great Retreat 1936

Answer 3

Series of more conservative laws to restore the importance of traditional family:

• Divorce more expensive from 4 to 50 rubles up.
• Abortion outlawed
• Husbands who didn’t pay for their children in prison for up to 2 years
• Homosexuality outlawed

Question 4

Khrushchev

Answer 4

• Women encouraged to both work and take care of the household (double burden)
• Multi-generational family units encouraged
• More benefits (housing, maternity arrangements, childcare)
• Abortion legalised again 1955 to lessen family expenses and used as a form of contraception

Question 5

Brezhnev years

Answer 5

• Declining rate of population (0.8%) but birth rate in muslim areas high
• 1970s trend towards single-family occupancy of flats
• Alcoholism 1982 an average adult would consume 18 litres of vodka PA (as no father-role model)
• Same with divorce. 1/3 would end up with