the higher
class of Russians became more and more isolated from her former
surroundings. The Tartar invasion and domination only contributed to the
separatist tendencies in Russian society. Formally, woman retained her
old right of being her husband's friend, companion, and adviser; she
owned property in her own name, disposed of her dower at will, and was
entitled to a share of her husband's property on his death. But as a
matter of fact, the Russian woman was her husband's slave. She was
excluded from that part of the house where her husband received his men
friends.

Domostroi, the Russian domestic code, compiled in the sixteenth century
confines woman to the kitchen and to purely domestic occupations.
Woman's virtues are said to lie in silence and humility. She was to
speak only when spoken to. She was to ask questions and advice with
utmost deference. She was to have no secrets from her husband. Her
husband's will was her law and her guide in life. Her aim in life was to
save her soul, to please God and her husband. Her husband could even
apply the rod to her in case of a serious transgression on her part. In
her harem-like seclusion, Russian woman acquired a taste for luxury in
apparel and house decoration and developed many varieties of fine
handiwork.

This seclusion of woman and her separation from her husband's company
had as their result a general coarsening of social tastes. Men amused
themselves with bear hunting, pugilism, and other rough sports. When
engagements were arranged between persons totally unacquainted with each
other, when a wife was purchased, when another girl was substituted in
the place of the one bargained for, and when the engaged parties could
not see each other until the very wedding ceremony, marriages were often
a failure, and led to a mutual deceit, secret immorality, and not
infrequently to crime. Even one of the most enlightened Russian writers
and educators of the seventeenth century, Simen Polotski, advised that
woman should be kept like a slave or a wild beast. We read of many cases
where men chastised their wives with heavy whips.

One Russian woman is reported to have frequently cried over the fact
that her husband, a German by birth, would not whip her, which to her
was a sign of indifference. Men got rid of their wives by sending them
to a convent, or by poison. The code of Alexis Mikhailovich does not
even punish a husband for disposing of his wife in a criminal way. But