The right of the first night in the Russian empire. The Right of the First Night: How This Tradition Arose. Stream and plunder

The first wedding night in Russia was arranged in a special way and had many differences from the analogous tradition of other nations. Among the peoples of Africa, Europe and India, the right of the first night meant the intimate contact of the bride with a stranger. Often it was the elder of the tribe, a noble lord, or even just the first person he met.

In Russia, the right to deprive a girl of her virginity traditionally belonged to her future husband. According to church canons, a married marriage is sacred and any attempt on someone else's marriage bed is a great sin. Later, the feudal lords often neglected this law and used the right of the first wedding night but the church did not welcome it.
Time spending
The wedding ceremony in Russia was a complex sacrament that combined Christian and pagan traditions... The timing of the wedding has always been carefully chosen. For many peoples of the world, the first intercourse of newlyweds could occur on the third or fourth day, or even later (some Muslim countries, India, etc.).

For Russians, the first wedding night took place during a wedding celebration, so it was very important to set the wedding on a date authorized by the church. According to Orthodox laws, it is impossible to have sexual intercourse during fasting and on church holidays, therefore, weddings were not appointed for this time.
Wedding night preparation ritual

For the Russian people, the wedding night has long been called the basement. This is due to the fact that the bed of the young was always arranged in a cool place: in the basement of the hut (pictured), closet, barn or bathhouse.
This always happened on the territory of the groom, since the girl after the wedding went to live with him. For the newlyweds, a high bed was prepared on a sturdy wooden base. He was covered with bedding from the girl's dowry. The preparation of the bed for the bride and groom was the responsibility of the matchmakers. Also, the mother or sister of the groom could prepare the bed.

A lot of ritual objects were laid on the bed, which were supposed to protect the newlyweds from damage and provide them with a comfortable existence in the future. These amulets included small rye sheaves, bags of flour, mattresses, feather beds. Above the bed was covered with a snow-white embroidered bedspread. Several logs, a frying pan, a poker, and a juniper branch were placed under the bed of the bed. These items were supposed to protect the couple from all evil spirits. The logs symbolized future offspring, so they had to be put in more.
Seeing off the newlyweds

A whole crowd of guests accompanied the newlyweds to the “bedchamber” prepared in this way: friends, matchmakers, relatives and in general anyone who wanted to take part in a noisy and cheerful action. Seeing off was accompanied by songs, obscene jokes and advice. The friend beat the box with a whip, expelling evil spirits. Then he had to pay the ransom to the bed-sisters.
Alone

After all these rituals, the newlyweds were finally left alone. The door was locked, and a cell guard was left near it. He, too, had to protect the newlyweds from evil spells and various evil spirits. But the guests often remained at the door and simply spied on the young.

Left alone, the bride and groom first treated themselves to bread and chicken. This food was supposed to give the couple fertility. After eating, the girl was obliged to remove the boots from the guy's feet. Thus, she showed humility in front of her future husband and showed her readiness to obey him in everything. Also, the girl had to ask her husband for permission to lie with him. Then sexual intercourse must have taken place. A friend came to inquire about this several times. As soon as the girl lost her virginity, the marriage was considered physically confirmed, which was loudly announced to all guests. The young could again be taken to a feast and delight them with songs of the most obscene content, or the guests themselves came to the basement of the newlyweds and remained there until dawn.
Innocence as the main attribute
The most important moment in this whole ritual was the demonstration of the bride's shirt with blood stains. If the bride kept her virginity before the wedding, she was considered honest. Otherwise, she brought shame not only on herself, but also on her parents. A collar was hung around the neck of the matchmaker and the parents of the dishonest newlywed. Father was offered a glass of wine with a hole in the bottom. The girl could even be returned to her father's house.


The loss of virginity on their wedding night was symbolically celebrated by hanging towels embroidered with red threads and beating pots. After that, the girl became "young", and the guy - "young". After the wedding night, the pullets were dressed in clothes married woman and put on her an appropriate headdress. The whole ritual had to be strictly observed, otherwise new family threatened with sterility and poverty.

At times modern people various customs and traditions followed by the inhabitants of medieval Europe are shocking. For example, the right of the first wedding night, which belonged to the feudal lords of many countries, was also practiced in feudal Russia. For centuries the peasants submitted to the master's authority, practically without protesting. It means that not everything is so simple. Why was it that everyone was satisfied that it was not her fiancé that deprives a girl of her innocence?

What is the custom?

Loss of virginity in the language of medicine is called "defloration". According to custom, this should take place on the wedding night. In the Middle Ages, the right to have sexual intercourse with the bride, if she and her groom belonged to the peasant class, was possessed by their master. That is, a feudal landowner whose land is cultivated by the families of young people getting married.

As a rule, it was possible to avoid fulfilling one's duty to a nobleman only by paying a kind of "compensation". The size and form of such a tribute, levied by the master from his maturing peasants, varied depending on the country and the personal whim of the splendid count or duke.

However, this custom was fought by some representatives of the authorities and clergy, depending on their own views. For example, back in 1486, the King of Spain Ferdinand II the Catholic (1452-1516) issued a decree prohibiting noble lords from using the daughters and sons of peasants against their will "for a fee or without payment", as well as sleeping on their wedding night with the bride.

Nobody restrained the French aristocracy, the right of the first night was used here openly. Even the representatives of the Catholic clergy, who often owned significant plots of land, were engaged in defloration of their peasant women. And some of the nobles took advantage of this, inviting everyone to use their right to the innocence of girls for a reasonable fee.

Domestic nobles also did not lag behind their Western "colleagues". And although, according to the laws of the Russian Empire, landowners did not have the right to the wedding night of serfs, many used this custom. The complete lack of rights of the Russian peasants allowed the masters to do almost anything with them.

To avoid paying tax

However, most of the inhabitants of our country and states Western Europe this custom was fine. And one of the reasons why the representatives of the lower class literally put their brides under the feudal lords, was the unwillingness to pay the appropriate tax.

The peasants always did not live well, there was no extra money in their families. For example, the “Book of Burgundy Customs” (a historical document from the late 14th century) says that by marrying a girl who belonged to another nobleman, a peasant is obliged to pay a ransom to his owner. The payment could have been avoided by forcing the bride to be gesir soubs le seigneur, which literally means "to lie under the lord."

The amount of the tribute for the innocence of the girl, which made it possible to avoid a night with the landowner, depended on his preferences. So, at the beginning of the 15th century, on the territory of Normandy, the groom could "redeem" the right of the first night from a nobleman for 10 sous, a sirloin of a pig and a gallon of wine. Some peasants were sorry to part with money and provisions, they preferred to yield to the counts and dukes of their brides.

Some Russian nobles also generously endowed young families, satisfying their whims. Such material assistance was very useful for people starting a life together.

Defloration professional

Contrary to stereotypes, many men do not like to deprive girls of their innocence. Impressive young men are scared away by the screams, pain, tears and bloody discharge of young beauties. The physiological aspects of the female body seem terrible to grooms. In Puritan Europe, marriages were often made by guys who had little sexual experience. It was difficult for them to perform defloration both physically and mentally.

It was here that professionals came to the rescue, who could “do it” with the girls in the least painful and as safe way as possible, properly arousing the young lady and without injuring her fragile psyche. Needless to say, this is a task that is beyond the power of inexperienced youngsters.

It is not surprising that in 1507, when the city hall of the French city of Amiens passed a law obliging seniors to share a bed with the wives of their vassals on their wedding night, the population positively accepted this decision of the authorities. Defloration was perceived by many people not as a right, but as a duty of a nobleman.

Some earls and dukes had to take hundreds of girls a year from innocence. If the elderly lord could no longer cope with his task properly, one of his children or younger relatives took over this important function.

The origins of this custom are rooted in the depths of centuries. In pre-Christian Europe, it was believed that only a shaman or a tribal leader could defloration without causing the wrath of the spirits. This difficult task was handled by professionals. The echoes of pagan beliefs were strong among the people. Only the shaman was replaced by a signor or ... a representative of the clergy.

Once the inhabitants of the male monastery, located in the Italian city of Piedmont, even turned to the local bishop with a request to release them from the obligation to engage in defloration of local residents. The leadership of the Catholic Church went to meet them, replacing the prevailing custom with the payment of the appropriate tax.

Bastard child

In no country in the world has the position of the peasants been enviable. Therefore, people hoped that the girl would become pregnant from the landowner. If the child was born 9 months after the wedding, then the master was informed about the birth of an illegitimate son or daughter. Many noblemen believed in their paternity, they generously helped the peasant family, gave money to support the child. This allowed the spouses to comfortably raise other children.

In addition, some landowners sought to give their bastards a decent education, which had a positive effect on their future. Illegitimate descendants of representatives of noble Russian families even received truncated surnames of their fathers. For example, the bastard of Count Vorontsov was recorded in the documents as Rontsov, the son of Prince Trubetskoy bore the surname Betskoy, the descendant of Bestuzhev - Stuzhev, etc.

The bride's innocence was confirmed

In Christian countries, the girl's innocence was often one of the prerequisites for her marriage. But not all young ladies kept their virginity before the wedding. How to be? The right of the first night turned out to be in their hands, because that way it was possible to hide everything. Say, "the gentleman did this to me."

As for the nobleman himself, he absolutely does not care: the bride is a stranger. Why report to the peasants that the young lady turned out to be very experienced and skillful in bed? What does he care about people he doesn't even want to know?

That is why many girls did not resist. For most of them, the master's bed was available only on their wedding night, and they used it.

The myth of the first man

In many European countries, there was a pagan belief that the first man is very important in the life of any woman. It was believed that he, as it were, leaves his energy mark on her, affects all her future children, who will certainly inherit his qualities, regardless of whether this man is their biological father or not.

Some peasants wanted their offspring to borrow at least a little traits from a "noble" person.

And the customs that have spread throughout the world, a special place is occupied by the so-called right of the first night. The ceremony consists in depriving the virginity of the bride, who has just played a wedding and she will have her first night of love. The groom seems to be relegated to the background and becomes an outside observer of what is happening, and the defloration of the bride, or, more simply, the very thing in her life is done by another person.

As a rule, the owner of the patrimony and the entire population living on his land is either the leader of a large tribe, or a landowner with several hundred serfs. In any case, the bride was no longer a virgin to the groom. And in some countries, right at the wedding with the bride, all male guests had to have sexual intercourse in turn. After copulation, the man presented her with a gift. After this intimate part, the friendship between the groom and his friends on the side of the bride grew even stronger.

On the European continent during the Middle Ages, the right to the first night was enshrined in law. It was believed that the suzerain or even any petty feudal lord gave a young woman a kind of start in life, personally depriving her of her innocence. In most cases, the groom fully supported the right of the first night, since at that distant time the feeling of superstition and religious mood were so all-consuming that the grooms were considered happiness if their chosen one passed through someone else's bed.

After several centuries, the picture has changed. Increasingly, one could meet a groom who did not want to share his beloved bride with aged princes and counts, giving the right to the first night. He preferred to pay off, pay for the inviolability of his wife. In many countries of Europe and Asia, sexual intercourse with the bride was replaced by other ritual acts. The gentleman had to step over the bed with the lying bride or stretch his leg across the bed. This was considered tantamount to sexual intercourse.

And sometimes the first night of the young people was furnished with so many noisy and restless displays of lively participation in the wedding process that another groom would be glad to give up his place to friends or even a casual passer-by. In Macedonia, for example, sending the newlyweds to the room where they were supposed to spend their first night and giving the groom the right to be the first, numerous friends raised an unimaginable noise, pounded pots and hit the walls with sticks. Then they closed the door to the chambers and left in order to return exactly five minutes later, open the door and ask if everything worked out, where the sheet with traces of blood was and why there was no news for so long.

And when the sheet was received and the elderly women brought it out for everyone to see, there was no end to the joy of the wedding guests. Thus, the bloody right of the first night was still assumed by the groom. The sheet was hung out in a conspicuous place and after that dozens of clay pots were broken: "as many shards, so many children will be at the young ones." BUT strongest of the world this, the counts, landowners, nobles and others like them, participated on equal terms in the wedding celebration, although not as performers of the ritual, but as simply guests of honor, which did not prevent them from having fun with everyone.

Today, the most ancient customs may seem provocative and even barbaric. However, this is a part of the wedding history of the world that is interesting to get to know. Someone will be glad that nowadays this is not practiced among modern newlyweds; someone may even be upset ...

Not pleasure, but danger

In ancient times, the power of superstition was greater than ever before throughout the world. Therefore, the blood that appears when a girl is deprived of her virginity was associated with evil among many peoples. To avoid trouble, such a dangerous business was not trusted by the groom. For example, an elder or a sorcerer was the first to fight "evil". However, the different nations this mission was carried out different people... And in different quantities and in different ways ...

Shamans deprived girls of innocence to save them from evil spirits

In the ancient Scandinavian tribes, the sorcerer stole the virgin bride at nightfall before the first wedding night and dragged her into the forest. There he brought a sacrifice (moose or wild boar) to the goddess Friya by the fire, so that later he would perform ritual intercourse with the girl.

Ancient sex on the first date

IN Ancient egypt an unmarried girl on a certain day came to the temple of the Great Goddess, where she had to surrender herself to the first man she met. You can imagine how the male sex probably loved to hang out in that temple!

In India, one of the peoples invited a non-native man to the wedding, who stayed in the village overnight to take his virginity to the bride.

Just think, but what today is the most disgusting and sick betrayal for us, in the Papuan tribe of Arunto was considered the norm. Shortly before the wedding, the groom himself (!) Asked two or three of his friends to steal the bride and deprive her of her innocence. But this was only the beginning, because after the girl became a woman, every man of the tribe could come to her house before the wedding with a very specific purpose ...

The first was ... not a human

The inhabitants of the Kuanyama tribe, located near Namibia, acted completely inhumanly. Future brides were deprived of their innocence with a chicken egg!
There were peoples in history who did this with local girls using a bone knife or finger. This was done in New Guinea, on the Marquesas Islands, in the tribes of Central Australia and Central America. This was usually done by an elderly woman. And then - all the men of the groom's clan took turns copulating with the bride. The last was the legal spouse.

Defloration as an honorable right

However, some ancient peoples put a different meaning in the tradition of the “right of the first night”. For example, the ancient inhabitants of the Balearic Islands considered it a privilege. Therefore, the oldest and most honorable of the guests at the wedding "went to bed" with the bride first, then all the others followed in descending order by age and rank. The groom was the last. And in North Africa At the beginning of our era, the first wedding night even became a kind of "continuation of the banquet", entertainment for guests. Each in turn copulated with the bride and gave her a gift.

Painting by V.D. Polenova "Right of the Lord"

In the Middle Ages, almost everywhere, the wedding night was the most honorable right. For the feudal lord it became a sacred duty to deprive the serf girls of innocence. Earls and dukes could make up to a hundred maidens a year! And even the brave medieval knights in shining armor were humbly obliged to surrender the "right of the first night" with their lady of the heart to their lord.
Fortunately, in Switzerland, for example, this custom became obsolete at the end of the 16th century, and some German states began to replace it with tribute or ransom. Such traditions persisted in Russia until the abolition of serfdom in 1861. In various European countries, the groom reached the bride in the second order until the 17th-18th centuries.

"Am I not your first? !!"

Ancient and medieval traditions were primarily against the groom, because the first could be anyone, but not him. Today, being the first for every man is a gift worth its weight in gold. Maybe the genetic memory of the grievances of the forefathers speaks in them? ..

Today is the wedding night - often the first, not in every sense

But in modern world talking about the "right of the first night" does not make much sense, because today, more than ever, the conventionality of this term is relevant. Indeed, for many girls, the wedding night is not the first in every sense of the word. However, in Africa there are still tribes that practice approaches to the first wedding night that are non-standard for civilized countries today ...

Elena Kaluzhina

In the traditions of some countries, including Russia, the newly-made husband did not always have, it would seem, the legal right to be the first to share a bed with his betrothed. And more often than not, an intimate relationship with a stranger's man for the bride was far from voluntary.

Convenient custom

The right of the first night is a phenomenon, for obvious reasons, not enshrined in any legislative acts, which existed in tribal cultures or countries with high level social inequality. Even Friedrich Engels noted that in the traditions of some peoples, the groom was the last person who could claim his bride on their wedding night. Before him, his betrothed could be used by brothers, distant relatives and even friends. In the tribes of Africa and South America shamans or leaders had the primary right to a bride, which was explained by the need to protect the young couple from evil spirits.

In medieval France, "Ius primae noctis" was a kind of privilege of a feudal lord, who could easily afford an intimate relationship with the wife of his vassal. According to historians, such a privilege may have arisen from the German custom of the Beilager, according to which large landowners had the primary right to have sexual contact with the bride of any of their subjects. In some cases, a vassal could pay compensation to his feudal lord and then he waived the right to use his wife.

Scientists rightly refer to the absence of documents confirming the right to the first night in Medieval Europe, but there is still indirect evidence. For example, the surviving decision of the arbitration court in Gudalupe, Spain from 1486, which states that King Ferdinand II henceforth prohibits the masters from enjoying the privilege of spending the night with the vassal's bride, proves that such a right was nevertheless spelled out somewhere.

It is curious that the right of the first night, demonstrating the arbitrariness of the feudal lords, in some cases could be beneficial to the bride. Before marriage, not all girls kept virginity, which was considered almost a prerequisite for marriage. The night spent with the master relieved the bride of the worries about the prematurely lost innocence.

A revived tradition

According to ethnographers, the right of the first night is a custom very common in pagan Slavic culture. Sexual contact with the bride could have been made by a more skillful member of the tribal group. The purpose of the custom is to rid the young of the traumatic experience. Often the father of the future husband could use the right of the first night. Kidnapping of the bride by the groom's friends was also practiced. According to Vasily Tatishchev, the custom of giving a bride to the oldest community or village was forbidden by Princess Olga and replaced with a ransom.

In a transformed form, the right of the first night was preserved in Christian Russia. For example, in some villages at a wedding, each invited man had to snuggle up to the young man several times, imitating sexual intercourse: this supposedly allowed the bride to mentally prepare for the first wedding night.

In remote Ukrainian villages, until recently, the custom was widespread, according to which the groom had to provide evidence of the deprivation of the innocence of his betrothed. In case of failure, he was given two more chances. If they did not succeed, then his place was to be taken by an older relative or the most experienced man of the wedding guests.

In the middle of the 18th century, with the strengthening of serfdom in Russia, the right of the first night received a new impetus. This most difficult time for the peasantry, which gave birth to the "saltychikhs", practically gave no hope to the serfs to resist the tyranny of the landowners. Although Russian laws made it possible to protect peasants from the abuse of soul owners, in fact, the omnipotent nobility was rarely brought to justice, using money and connections.

Russian writer and public figure Prince Alexander Vasilchikov, the owner of the exemplary estate Trubetchino, in his book "Land tenure and agriculture in Russia and other European countries" cites many facts of violence, including sexual, landlords against serfs, when innocent peasant girls were corrupted for many years with impunity to satisfy the lusts of your master.

Arbitrariness in Russian

Unfortunately, in Russia, not all landowners, like Alexander Vasilchikov, cared about their subjects. Usually, the further you go to the capital, the more often cases of abuse of position and power were recorded. Boris Tarasov in the book “Serf Russia. The history of popular slavery ”informs that if minor nobles were subjected to violence from a more influential neighbor, then peasant girls were completely defenseless in front of him. Coercion to debauchery, according to Tarasov, was akin to a separate duty - a kind of "corvee for women."

Historian Vasily Semevsky writes that some landowners who spent most of their time abroad came to their homeland with only one purpose - to satisfy their lust. By the arrival of the master, the estate manager had to prepare a list of all the grown peasant girls, each of whom fell into the possession of the owner for a couple of nights. When the list ended, the landowner drove to another village.

Russian publicist, a native of a wealthy noble family, Alexander Koshelev, described this shameful phenomenon using the example of his neighbor, the young landowner S. This gentleman, a passionate hunter for "fresh girls", did not allow a peasant wedding to take place until he experienced the dignity of a bride. Once the parents of one of the girls for marriage did not submit to the master's willfulness, writes Koshelev. And then the landowner ordered to deliver the whole family to the house, chained his mother and father to the wall and forced them to contemplate how he raped his daughter.

This incident was discussed by the entire county, but the influential young libertine got away with it. However, it happened that the authorities still punished the unbelted master. So, in 1855, the court ordered the privy councilor Kshadovsky to pay a fine to the victim for using the right of the first night. It was only after the abolition of serfdom that the tradition of corrupting peasant brides in Russia began to decline.