The Lithuanian Family in its European Context, 1800-1914

"Leinarte's book...is a pioneering effort to structure a very complex data set of primary sources... dealing with family, marriage, divorce, and related topics. In western scholarship, the field of "family history" (inclusively defined) has been a standard part of social-history research since the 1960s, but not so in or about the Baltic region. The inherent complexity of the project ensures a long shelf-life for the book: Leinarte has no competitors in this field in the Lithuanian profession, and this is true also among western researchers." (Andrejs Plakans, Iowa State University, USA)

This case study reveals how under often restrictive laws and policies – serfdom up to 1861, and the pervasive role of the Church, in addition to deep-rooted customary practices – women and men manage to normalize their family life.This book investigates marriage and divorce in the nineteenth-century European territories of the Russian Empire. It uncovers the way a peasant community employed unsanctioned marital behaviour, such as cohabitation and bigamy, among others, in order to respond to the external factors that had an impact on the family life, including transmission of inheritance and household structure. Lithuania was part of the Tsarist Empire until 1914. This case study reveals how under often restrictive laws and policies – serfdom up to 1861, and the pervasive role of the Church, in addition to deep-rooted customary practices – women and men manage to normalize their family life. The volume is based on a wide range of archival sources and uncovers familial behaviour both from an individual and community perspectives.