Divorces in the Orthodox Population of the South Ural in the Second Half of the Xix – Early Xx Century

The article examines the dissolution of marriage among the Orthodox population of the Southern Urals using the example of the Orenburg and Ufa dioceses in the second half of the XIX – early XX century and its local characteristics. A brief analysis of the scientific literature shows that the problem was studied on a nationwide scale, while it was not considered from a regional perspective. The main sources were statistical materials. At that time, two departments were involved in the statistics of divorces among the Orthodox population of the empire: the Central Statistical Committee (CSC) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Synod. Statistical information was periodically published, first of all, by the Synod. This information is generally reliable. In the pre-revolutionary period, divorce among Orthodox Christians was divided into two types: divorce itself and recognition of the marriage as illegal and invalid. In particular, divorce occurred for the following reasons: in the case of proven adultery; inability to coexist; in case of exile or hard labor in Siberia; in the unknown absence of one of the spouses. A marriage was declared illegal and invalid if there was a close blood or spiritual relationship or quality of the spouses, if one of the spouses was insane, if the previous marriage was not dissolved, etc. The number of official divorces among the Orthodox population of the region until the revolution of 1917 was small. For 1867–1914 there were only 621 dissolved marriages in the Orenburg diocese, in Ufa – 469. In the 1860–1880s the main reasons for divorce were deprivation of rights to the wealth of one of the spouses and his unknown absence. At the beginning of the XX century adultery took first place among the causes of divorce. A similar situation occurred throughout the empire. In 1909, the year of the maximum number of divorces, the divorce rate among Orthodox Christians in the Orenburg diocese was 0.04 per thousand people, in the Ufa diocese – 0.03. In other years it was lower than this figure

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