peasant conceives it as such rather
than as a family. This is shown by the customary terminology, for
the Head of the Household is not called by any word corresponding
to Paterfamilias, but is termed, as I have said, Khozain, or
Administrator--a word that is applied equally to a farmer, a shopkeeper
or the head of an industrial undertaking, and does not at all convey
the idea of blood-relationship. It is likewise shown by what takes
place when a household is broken up. On such occasions the degree of
blood-relationship is not taken into consideration in the distribution
of the property. All the adult male members share equally. Illegitimate
and adopted sons, if they have contributed their share of labour,
have the same rights as the sons born in lawful wedlock. The married
daughter, on the contrary--being regarded as belonging to her husband's
family--and the son who has previously separated himself from the
household, are excluded from the succession. Strictly speaking, the
succession or inheritance is confined to the wearing apparel and any
little personal effects of a deceased member. The house and all that it
contains belong to the little household community; and, consequently,
when it is broken up, by the death of the Khozain or other cause, the
members do not inherit, but merely appropriate individually what
they had hitherto possessed collectively. Thus there is properly no
inheritance or succession, but simply liquidation and distribution of
the property among the members. The written law of inheritance founded
on the conception of personal property, is quite unknown to the
peasantry, and quite inapplicable to their mode of life. In this way a
large and most important section of the Code remains a dead letter for
about four-fifths of the population.

This predominance of practical economic considerations is exemplified
also by the way in which marriages are arranged in these large families.
In the primitive system of agriculture usually practised in Russia, the
natural labour-unit--if I may use such a term--comprises a man, a
woman, and a horse. As soon, therefore, as a boy becomes an able-bodied
labourer he ought to be provided with the two accessories necessary
for the completion of the labour-unit. To procure a horse, either by
purchase or by rearing a foal, is the duty of the Head of the House;
to procure a wife for the youth is the duty of "the female Big One"
(Bolshukha). And the chief consideration in det