Marriage and the antichrist: a century of opposition to marriage among peasant women of the Spasovo Soglasie

Abstract

Review of a book by John Bushnell, American historian, professor at Northwestern University, Weinberg College (USA). The book is based on a description of the practice of celibacy in the XVIII–XIX centuries among peasant women from among the Old Believers of the Spasovo Soglasie and its impact on the life of peasant households. The author seriously supplements and deepens existing ideas about the variety of types of marriage among peasants in the Russian Empire. To what extent was early and universal marriage a universal model for representatives of all branches of Orthodoxy? The book will be useful for a wide range of people interested in Russian history, from scholars of peasant studies, demographers, and historians of the period of the Russian Empire to the average reader.