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The patriarchal family in modern Orthodoxy. Nun Nina (Krygina): “The royal family is the ideal of a Christian family

Times are changing, social relations are changing with them. In ancient times, a woman was an indisputable authority in the tribe, such a union is called matriarchal. Now especially popular is the egalitarian type of relationship, where both partners are equal.

However, the family structure of the patriarchal type has become most widespread throughout the world. The question arises: a patriarchal family - what is it, what are the signs and features of such interpersonal relationships?

The traditional patriarchal family is a cell of society where a man occupies a dominant position. Translated from Greek, "patriarchy" means "paternal power", this definition describes not only relationships within the family, but also in society.

In this form of social organization, a man is a moral authority and a person with political power.

A woman in a patriarchal type union is a slave, she completely obeys her husband, monitors life, equips the hearth.

A man provides for the household, does not allow his wife to work under any circumstances. Children are brought up very strictly, they early age is grafted deep respect to the elders.

Based on this, the definition of a patriarchal family follows - this is a union consisting of a husband, wife, children, within which strong family relations between generations. Right last word belongs exclusively to the representative of the stronger sex.

signs

The hallmarks of a patriarchal family will help you understand what it is. In fact, a similar way of life existed from antiquity until recently, in some cultures, traces of this influence are still found. What is a patriarchal family - clearly, this is the subordination of a woman to her man, but what are its characteristic features?

Patrilineality. This feature is that the inheritance of social status, property occurs only from father to son. The father has the right to dispose of the children as he sees fit.
The responsibility of a man. The head of the family is fully responsible for the well-being of the house, the honor of the family. He is responsible for the woman, children, provides them with everything necessary. While society does not condemn a man's right to "own" a woman, he treats her with great respect. She reciprocates him.
Monogamy. A Russian family clan of the patriarchal type is necessarily monogamous, that is, the husband has one wife, and the wife, respectively, has one husband. In Muslim society, polygamy is allowed, but it cannot be that one woman has several husbands. Polyandry, or polyandry, is not allowed.
coexistence of several generations. It is easy to understand what a patriarchal family is if you turn your attention to one of the main signs. The main characteristic is that several generations live under one roof. Sons, when they get married, bring their wives home. All members of such a large clan implicitly obey the older man.
Large families. The presence of rich offspring is only welcome. A woman, as a rule, gives birth while she has physical force, does not have the right to terminate the pregnancy. A mother dedicates her life to raising her children young age they are taught to be responsible for their actions, hardworking.
Obeying strict rules. What is a patriarchal family is following the canons, rules, which, of course, lead to general well-being and prosperity. Own interests of the household fade into the background, family values, customs, and traditions are paramount.
Arranged marriages. When choosing a partner, they are guided by his financial condition, benefit for the welfare of the whole family. Marriages for love usually do not occur.

The patriarchal way of life is also characterized by such a characteristic as conservatism. Various moves, changes of residence, workplace are highly undesirable. All changes are made exclusively by the oldest male with the most authority.

Need to know! Patriarchy has both positive and negative traits. The advantage of this form of family structure is that, according to statistics, in such marriages there is an extremely small number of divorces.

There are several types of such unions, depending on the degree of control exercised by a man.

Families where complete control is practiced are extremely rare in the modern world, except in Muslim or religious families, however, it allows the best way understand what a patriarchal family is and how the parties interact.

Without the participation of a man, nothing happens in it. Total control extends to all spheres of life, only the husband makes decisions on any issue.

The Orthodox Church promotes the veneration of men. A woman is completely subordinate to a man, but she is respected and respected by him. A man protects his companion from adversity, trusts her and is interested in her opinion. This is a harmonious union where respect and love dominate. Children are brought up calmly, they are instilled with respect, trust, care for each other.

There is a partial patriarchy, where the power of a male representative extends only to one of the following areas:

financial part.
Parenting.
Protecting the honor of the wife and all family members.

The patriarchal Russian family has some peculiarities. Unlike the families of Ancient Rome, where the right to own a woman was equated with slavery, that is, the head disposed of the woman as some kind of thing or slave, the Slavs had a different situation - the man did not interfere in women's affairs at all. In Russia, a patriarchal union consisted of several married couples.

They owned common property and worked together on farming. Bolshak, that is, the most mature and experienced man, led everyone, he was helped by an adviser, but she did not have a high status.

Interesting! In Rus', widows did not enjoy the right of inheritance after the death of their husband.

By the nineteenth century, the Russian family united two or three generations of relatives. However, in the lower classes, such a family consisted of a father, mother and children. Changes in lifestyle family life occurred on the eve of the twentieth century, along with changes in the economy.

In many ways, this was facilitated by crises occurring within the family. In the masterpieces of classical literature of that century, one can trace this tendency of disobedience to the head of the family. Soon the situation changed radically, and by the 1980s, women everywhere took over the function of managing finances. However, the influence of patriarchy is still felt today.

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Conclusion

The patriarchal type of family structure has become obsolete in many European countries, but there are isolated cases of unquestioning obedience to a man. Psychologists say that only insecure individuals with low self-esteem can exist in it.

Nevertheless, one should not neglect the advantages that this form of relationship guarantees: the absence of abandoned children, destitute old people, respect and reverence for elders, responsibility for one's actions, mutual assistance.

The wrong bees are known to make the wrong honey. Misunderstood patriarchy in the relationship between husband and wife makes their family life confused, difficult, like bad dream and eventually destroy it altogether. About three quarters of my friends have already divorced their wives. There are many reasons for this, each hut has its own rattles. But I can single out one now especially, because it is present in all, without exception, family disasters that happened to my friends.

This reason is a crookedly understood patriarchy, which they put as the basis of family life. Although why - them? In this sense, I myself am not much different from them. And for many years he also disfigured the life of his family in a “patriarchal”, as it seemed to me then, manner. Yes, so famously that she survived only by a miracle. Thank God - I managed to stop in time, examine my life and, rather, not even with my mind, but with some kind of heartfelt instinct, determine what urgently needs to be corrected in myself. Now I understand well what was wrong. Perhaps my reasoning will seem banal, but I will still share them: suddenly for someone they will also become a turning point, the last drop, which was just not enough to start living differently.

That's what Gosha said

The first time of our life together, my wife and I periodically argued about who should be in charge in the family. And when she's in again indignantly asked: “Well, why is it always you who decide how and what we should do?”, I answered her with the same constancy: “Because I am a man.” This recipe from the cool macho Gosha from the movie "Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears" became the main argument for me in family skirmishes. A very convenient argument, by the way. Explaining nothing, but - final and indisputable.

The protagonist of the film, a magnificent intellectual locksmith, sorting things out with his beloved woman, says in an ultimatum form: “Remember, I will always decide everything myself on the simple basis that I am a man.” For the male part of the population of our country, these words of Gosha immediately became a kind of motto. I, too, was no exception. And somehow it was not clear to me then to ask at all simple questions. Indeed, why do men consider mere belonging to their gender sufficient reason for such statements? Why does a similar phrase spoken by a woman not sound convincing either in the movies or in real life? Indeed, even in the film, the heroine of Vera Alentova is in no way inferior to many men in personal qualities, and in many ways even surpasses them, not excluding her beloved Gosha. She managed to raise her daughter alone, graduate from college, and make a career. She is a major leader, deputy, makes good money, lives in a spacious comfortable apartment ... In general, all the attributes life success she has, but her personal life somehow did not work out. And then a smart mechanic Gosh appears, living in a communal apartment, who begins to put her in her place, motivating his right to such behavior only by the fact that he is a man. It turns out some kind of strange (not to say - ridiculous) picture: a woman can be smarter than men, have better education, more than he, earn, occupy a higher position in society. But, despite any, even the highest achievements in the outside world, at home, in the family, she still has one lot left - uncomplaining submission to a man who "always decides everything himself." And, what is the saddest thing, this is not just an invention of the screenwriter and director. Thousands of men treat women the same way.

The masculine charm of the filmmaker Gosha, as they say, goes off scale. Clever, handsome, enterprising, knows how to cook, fight, drink without getting drunk, achieve the favor of a woman he likes. Why not a role model? This is what I thought about twenty-five years ago. And out of inexperience, he lost sight of a simple and seemingly obvious fact: why does such an outstanding man in all respects lead a bachelor lifestyle after forty? Why doesn't he have children? Why did his wife leave him, in his own words - a beautiful woman. No, well, really - if you yourself are such a handsome man, and your wife is beautiful, why didn’t it grow together with you? What was not shared? Gosha answers these questions in his usual manner, briefly and exhaustively: "Just unlucky." From a young age, I did not pay much attention to this moment.

However, now I can say with confidence that such “bad luck” is in fact the result of a very serious, one might say, systemic, fundamental mistake. The fact is that the leadership position in the style of "...because I am a man" is a hidden reference to the patriarchal, traditional way of the family, and it is there, in this tradition, that the source of her rightness should be located. But the fact of the matter is that this “... I will always decide everything myself” has nothing to do with the patriarchal way of life.

My home is her castle

Yes indeed, in all family codes In the patriarchal world one can find provisions designed to limit the leadership of a woman. But here is a seemingly simple question that for some reason always remains out of sight when considering this topic: why, in fact, it was necessary like this - formally and even legislatively - to limit the powers of a woman where a man is already "... he always decides everything himself, simply because he is a man”?

It is obvious that only something that is already very large, striving for further growth, needs to be limited. And the corresponding places from the same "Domostroy", in fact, indirectly testify to the huge role of women in the patriarchal family. Its influence was so great there that it had to be limited by special regulations. The reason for this is quite simple. The fact is that it is not the strongest or even the most intelligent or talented who becomes the leader in any field. The most motivated becomes the leader. Mind, strength and talent will never bring a person to the first positions in his chosen business if he does not have sufficient motivation to win. And vice versa - people with by no means outstanding data can work miracles if they have a goal in which the whole meaning of their existence is concentrated.

Yes, a man by his very nature stronger than a woman. And in the days of the patriarchal system, he was much more educated. But in the space of the family, all this could not provide him with unconditional leadership, because here a woman has a much stronger motivation than he has: caring for children. Emotionally, the mother is connected with the child much more strongly than the father, she carries him in her body for nine months, then she breastfeeds for several years, he is the focus of her whole life. And the house, the family - this is just the territory in which she raises and educates children. And here she will not yield leadership to anyone - neither strong, nor educated, nor talented. And if he gives in, then only at the cost of irreparable emotional losses, after which life in the family will turn out to be bleak for both the vanquished and the winner.

For many years I naively thought that this trouble would never reach my family. But it turned out that she didn’t even need to reach out - from the very beginning of our family life, she slowly gnawed at our love, like a rat.

AT patriarchal world people understood this very well. Therefore, leadership between a man and a woman was distributed there as wisely as it is simple: a man equips the outside world, a woman equips a house. Each realizes his need for leadership in his own territory and does not try to capture someone else's. In the end - all is well, everyone is happy. And in order to maintain such, as they would say now - dynamic balance marital status, - the codes specifically prescribed a set of restrictions for women. Why only for them? Yes, because in those days there were simply no women in the space of public life. Public administration, wars, trade - all this was done only by men. There were no women at all in this territory of theirs, therefore, men here could not in any way exceed their powers in relation to them. But on the territory of a woman, a man appeared daily. Moreover, he is tired, hungry, tuned not to some kind of achievement or leadership, but to an elementary rest from his important public male affairs, in need of affection, warmth, emotional support. And here a woman needed a lot of worldly wisdom so as not to be tempted by the opportunity to dominate her defenseless master to her fullest. Well, for those who lacked wisdom, just restrictive norms were given. In the same way, etiquette requires the hosts to be as delicate and considerate as possible to the guest (who has no rights in the house and is therefore vulnerable). Similarly, moral rules require respectful and careful attitude to the elderly (because they are weak and defenseless). Moral and ethical standards under patriarchy exalted a man precisely because he did not play a dominant role in the family.

Man, move over!

Such was the real alignment of forces in the patriarchal world. But what do we have in this sense now? And here's what. By virtue of objective reasons(progress, decrease in share physical labor in social production, general education, etc.) a woman entered the space public relations and firmly occupied a place there on a par with a man. The male monopoly of leadership in the outside world was broken. A woman works on a par with a man and no longer depends on him economically. In itself, this is neither good nor bad, it is simply a fact of our today's reality. But for the family, this change in the patriarchal paradigm proved to be a serious test. After all, the authority of each of the spouses is based either on the role that he plays directly in the family, or on his social significance. Having lost the position of the breadwinner, the man was simply unable to maintain his former position. He lost his leadership in society, but in the family the role of a woman still remained incomparably more important.

A man is not able to change the social situation, but to compete with successful woman It's hard work, and not everyone can do it. And then the man is walking along the path of least resistance: he comes up with a certain scheme of relations that has never existed in history, calls this scheme “patriarchal” and different ways trying to get a woman to follow her. The essence of the scheme is simple and boils down to a banal shifter: giving way to a woman leadership in public sphere, a man begins to claim leadership at home, in the family.

The Christian love of spouses lies not only in the patience of each other's shortcomings, but also in this very boring, but not at all hard work- weeding "baobabs" on their planet, which they have forever - one for two.

The locksmith-intellectual Gosha is a very expressive example of such a male "policy". Talented and ambitious person for some reasons unknown to us, he refused to realize himself in society, did not receive an education, did not make a career, did not achieve a position in society. And everything would be fine, but it’s clear that he suffers from this, brags, tries to prove to himself and others that, they say, he doesn’t need all this, that - out, doctors of science value his golden hands, barbecues are fried for him in nature . But he's smart! After all, he understands that this is not normal, that a person must develop, grow above himself, move forward and upward. Especially if that person is a man. Or can you seriously think that those academic techies from the film did not have golden hands? After all, only in the cinema such a complex lad as Gosha could arrange a booth in front of a woman, with praise from scientific colleagues accompanied by vodka and barbecue. In real life, he would normally work for them at the “screw-give-bring” level, because the experimental scientist does the bulk of his work himself, without intelligent locksmiths. It's just that some guys with golden hands at one time went to study further, defended dissertations, made discoveries and received state awards. And others (Gosh, for example) remained in the locksmiths on the hook. And, mind you - for fundamental reasons. And by the age of forty, the fruits of each choice became too obvious. And Gosha is trying to build a society where he would be the unconditional "boss".

And the place for such a construction is chosen by the family of Katerina who fell in love with him. As soon as he enters her house, he immediately begins to behave like a real leader: in a commanding tone he sends the hostess's daughter (stunned by such impudence) to the kitchen, then makes a thorough inspection of the premises for indirect signs the presence of another man. And when he does not find any, he begins to authoritatively manage the lives of two women he barely knows, who, before his appearance, managed perfectly well in their family life without his sensitive guidance.

Then he suddenly finds out that his beloved, the director of a large chemical plant, arranges a quiet tantrum and goes into a binge for a week due to an aggravated social inferiority complex. However, after a while, she kindly allows herself to be persuaded, and returns to the tearful Katerina, but already in the status of a “winner” who has accepted unconditional surrender: from now on, the powerful headmistress will live half her life and breathe half a breath, controlling her every movement and word, so as not to God forbid somehow accidentally not hurt the delicate and vulnerable nature of an intellectual locksmith. Which, as he himself put it, "practically no flaws."

Yes, this is just some kind of caricature of a real man! And it is no coincidence that the magnificent Alexei Batalov in one of his interviews literally said the following about this hero of his: “I perfectly understood that the authors of the film needed Gosha to complete the two-episode suffering of the unfortunate woman. But in the third series, he could hit her on the head with a bottle. Why not? Gosha left his first wife, sticks to an unfamiliar woman in the train, drinks, fights. lonely Soviet women did not consider my hero properly.

Locksmith at a fragile vessel

The cartoonish man Gosha formulated in the film an equally caricatured position - the allegedly patriarchal way of the family: "... everything and always I will decide myself on the simple basis that I am a man." In fact, patriarchal relations, as already mentioned, suggest a very clear distribution of leadership in the family: a man realizes his dominance in the outside world, a woman at home. And the reason for this is not only in the socio-economic structure of the patriarchal era. Saint John Chrysostom explains this state of affairs by God's special providence for the family, by some divine plan:

“Since our life consists of two kinds of affairs, public and private, God, separating one from the other, gave the wife the care of the house, and the husbands - all civil matters, matters in the square, judicial, deliberative, military and all others. The wife can neither throw a spear nor shoot an arrow, but she can take a spinning wheel, weave on the warp and do all other household chores well. She cannot give an opinion in council, but she can give an opinion at home, and often those household matters that her husband discusses, she understands better than him. She cannot correct public affairs well, but she can bring up children well, and this is the main of acquisitions; can notice the bad deeds of maids, take care of the honesty of employees, provide all other comforts to the spouse and relieve him of all such cares in the house, about treasures, about woolen products, about the preparation of dinner, about the appearance of clothes, taking care of all that, for which a husband is neither decent nor convenient, even if he used a lot of effort. Indeed, even this is a matter of providence and wisdom of God, that one who is useful in important matters is ignorant and useless in less important ones, so that the employment of a wife is also necessary.

For Orthodox families, all this is especially relevant, since even in today's post-industrial world they very often continue to live in a situation close to the patriarchal way of life: a mother with many children takes care of the children and household at home, while the father wins money from the outside world to support his family. big family. In this difficult field, he constantly has to deal with women much more successful than himself, which subjectively can be perceived by him as a kind of humiliation of his manhood. And then God forbid him from trying to "recoup" for this humiliation at home, on his wife. After all, for her, the house, the family is her whole life. Take away her power over this territory, and she will turn into a powerless creature, into a homeless housekeeper under an omnipotent despot.

Holy Scripture (certainly a patriarchal text) directly calls a woman a fragile vessel. And man's power over her should consist primarily in tenderness, in the desire to preserve this fragility, which has entrusted itself to man's hands. If, instead, a man, following the example of Gosha, suddenly decides to test his fragile vessel for strength at home, this can be called anything, but not a patriarchal way of life. The world today is strewn with fragments of such relations in three layers.

I will say some banality: in order for a patriarchal way of life to arise, first of all, a patriarch is needed - the head of the family, wise, understanding all the needs of each of its members and distributing family roles so that everyone's interests are taken into account. Simply put, the husband in the family should be such a patriarch. And for this, you will inevitably have to squeeze out the neurotic locksmith Gosha, and slowly become a real man who knows how to calmly and without hysteria cede to his woman that territory, the right to which, according to Chrysostom, God Himself handed her.

Patriarchal Orthodox family? Not everything is as it seems

Men who have survived the betrayal of women and divorce often turn to religion for moral and spiritual support, and knowing that New Testament prohibits divorce and considers a man as the head of the family, they believe that Orthodoxy protects the interests of men, supports patriarchal orders in the family. Is it so?

I was inside Orthodox Church For many years as a believer, I completed a two-year course of Orthodox catechists, I knew many priests, and therefore I know both the theory and practice of the modern Russian Orthodox Church thoroughly. Based on my own experience, I can unequivocally say: under the lubok patriarchal scenery, Orthodoxy has long established itself the cruelest totalitarian matriarchy with the unquestioning power of a woman in all spheres of private, family, public and proper church life.

In the photo: listeners of the lecture of Abbot Augustine (N.Novgorod, 2010). Typical Orthodox audience: more than 75% - women, in reality there were more women, about 90%, I suggested taking this general photo after the lecture, when some of the women had already left, and the men remained in full force (7 people, not counting the abbot) to set up the tables after the lecture is over. Carrying tables is, of course, not a woman's business. But even in this composition, the quantitative advantage of women is overwhelming. And it, in full accordance with the dialectic, from the quantitative at this level passes into the qualitative. Whose interests will the lecturer represent, seeing such an overwhelming advantage of the female audience? He will adapt to women and express views that are close and understandable to women if he wants to continue to listen to him. And the fact that women continue to listen to him confirms that he successfully adjusted and adopted a gynocentric ideology. Now Orthodoxy and gynocentrism have become a single whole (at least in the lectures of this lecturer). Is it possible that the vast majority of women in Orthodoxy will tolerate attitudes and ideologies that overwhelm their own interests? It's impossible. Therefore, if in Orthodoxy, and at the level of Orthodox education, lecturers in this case, women completely dominate, gynocentrism takes root and takes precedence over long-gone patriarchal views and "patriarchy".

Holy Scripture forbids women to be priests (to perform the sacraments), therefore there are no female priests, bishops in the church, the entire church hierarchy consists entirely of men. This gives the impression that the church is a patriarchal institution in which men have power over women. But this is far from true. Where is the catch? The fact is that from the very beginning of the church service, from the time of studying at the seminary, the future priest must either find a wife and marry before entering the rank, or become a monk. Wives for priests are prepared in special women's church (diocesan) schools. Girls formally study there to be choir directors, choristers, seamstresses, sisters of mercy, etc., they get an average professional education, and informally they are prepared to marry seminary students - future priests. Teaching in women's church schools is conducted, as a rule, by women - the wives of priests, often high-ranking ones, and women also carry out moral and psychological treatment of future priests' wives. And here, these girls are essentially being trained to manipulate and power their future husband precisely through those commandments that were originally supposed to ensure the husband's dominance in the family, but in the hands of manipulator women turned into the exact opposite.

The rule that the husband is the head of the family, women interpret exclusively through the words of the Apostle Paul from the Epistle to Timothy that “ But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has renounced the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. (1 Tim. 5:8). The fact that Christ in the New Testament says the exact opposite: “ a man's enemies are his household. Whoever loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and whoever loves a son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me ”(Matthew 10:36-37) they don’t remember. The wife of a priest from the very beginning is taken to completely control his entire life and service, and first of all she makes sure that the young priest does not miss the possible money flowing to him from the parishioners, especially expensive gifts and large donations from wealthy people. Not to take offerings, - wives inspire their husbands to Orthodox priests - means not to care about the family, and this is the gravest sin in their hierarchy of values.

The material well-being of a priest depends primarily on the benevolence of the church authorities, who can put him in the service of a profitable place, a profitable church, a rich parish, or hire him to work in the apparatus of the metropolis, where in general you need to deal with one easy task. office work or public relations for a salary that may be higher than that of other officials or the income of the average businessman. If the young priest falls out of favor, he can be sent to serve in a distant village, where the parish consists of two grandmothers, and the priest will not be able to collect anything for his salary, he will eat at the expense of subsistence farming and lead an existence on the verge of starvation, such happens too.

Naturally, the wives of priests know about all this in advance, and from the very beginning married life, or rather, even before it begins, they set a condition for their husbands: either you will be loyal and obedient, you will obey everything that your bosses order you, you will take any offerings from any donors, even if they are cannibals and child killers, and thereby you will ensure the material well-being of the wife, or the priest will not have any wife at all, and he will either have to accept monasticism, or completely refuse the priesthood (an unmarried or non-monk cannot receive the dignity). Marriage for a priest is blackmail on the part of his wife, it is a deal of loyalty and consent to everything. As a result, from the very beginning of the church service, we get a total, complete baborab. From the first days in the church, a young priest learns to obey his wife in everything, to fulfill all her instructions and whims, because she can demand a divorce at any time and for her this will not entail any absolutely unfavorable consequences in terms of career or status, and her husband - a priest after a divorce can be defrocked and banned from serving. For a man in his 40s and 50s, who knows nothing in his life except to wave a censer and chant incomprehensible texts, defrocking is the collapse of his whole life, unemployment, poverty, and the absence of a pension in old age. Therefore, the priest will climb out of his skin, but only to please his wife and not cause her displeasure.

The idea that the priest is the head of the family, that his wife is “afraid” of him, walks “on tiptoe” in front of him, and his children obey him in everything and stand in front of him “on the line”, following all instructions - this is a popular popular myth that does not have nothing to do with reality. All rules Holy Scripture quietly lie on a shelf in a book, while the de facto head of the priest's family is his wife. She leads family budget, promoting her husband as a business project: to find rich donors and philanthropists, to attract grants from various foundations, to get gifts from rich sponsors - all these are the initiatives of the wife, who uses her priest husband as a bait and a sign under which money and gifts are accepted. I know an example when, even in a remote village, wealthy sponsors built a chic cottage for a priest, stuffed it with high-end electronics for upper class, built a temple, provided the priest with a payment that allows him to lead a comfortable life with constant trips to rest abroad. Of course, the wife benefits from this, because. without her priest-husband, she would never have been able to get such really untold riches for nothing, just like that, in fact, for nothing, purely for the “brand”.

In the church, priests' wives are called " mothers". Around such a mother, a circle is sometimes formed of completely fanatically believing women, whom she pushes around as she wants, and with their help pushes through decisions that are beneficial to her within the parish. Often such women find employment in semi-profit organizations created on the basis of the parish: Sunday schools, various courses, summer camps for children, charitable foundations. All these areas are very profitable. Sponsors pay all the expenses and salaries of the “mothers” and their entourage, who often do not have any skills to work in one or another area, which the “mothers” put them on through pull (for example, work in summer camps with children).

If in public opinion and the stereotype of an Orthodox woman as a nondescript drab, wrapped from head to toe in scarves and long skirts, still persists, but in practice this is also just a decoration. Long Dresses and mother's skirts are now bought in boutiques and they are many times more expensive casual wear ordinary parishioners. If the vestments of a priest for worship can cost about 300,000 rubles, then their wives do not skimp on their outfits and can spend many times more. If the ordinary “workhorse bees” from the cohort of mothers are unpretentious old pensioners who work for free on mopping floors in churches and cleaning candlesticks and wearing one gray and black dress for decades, then the core of mother's circle is made up of young and ambitious girls and women, wives of other priests or "near-church" girls who smell the smell of money, power and comfort, and try to extract these bonuses from friendship with mother. They value themselves very highly, always dress in highest level, elegant and stylish, their skirts, of course, will be long, but from an expensive boutique or custom-made from expensive fabrics. They like to relax in style, if, for example, it is a trip to nature on bicycles, then on expensive multi-speed bikes, in expensive tracksuits, with expensive smartphones and SLR cameras.

These women treat men exclusively depending on their social and material status, because hanging out at the highest circle of mother for them is a way to get a rich sponsor who came with a donation to the church, to tie him up and marry him to themselves, so with officials and businessmen they will be silky virtuous girls, and in most cases they will look at those who come to put a candle on hard workers or students with contempt and arrogance.

The priest can’t oppose anything to this mother’s party and the “support group”. If he hints at something that is not beneficial for his wife, refuse to dance to her tune, she can raise a wave of “indignation” through her aunts-grandmothers, who will scribble dozens of complaints about the priest in the diocese and he will seriously get into trouble. Therefore, the priest, as in his professional activity, and in family life takes the role of henpecked and complete baborab. The whole modern church system determines this position of men in the church.

It was we who analyzed the situation in the families of priests. AT families of ordinary believers, of course, all this is different, but the pattern remains: what the more fanatical the believers, the more matriarchal the "patriarchal" Orthodox family. In strongly believing families, husbands, as a rule, are complete henpecked. Wives carry water on them, the husband leaves for work at 6 am, returns at 8 pm, sleeps and goes to work again. This is his “duty to feed his family,” which was instilled in him by his comfortably settled Orthodox wife, who, as a rule, either does not work at all herself, or is engaged in some unpretentious work, such as teaching music to preschoolers in Sunday school, not requiring special efforts or abilities, but often well paid if such Orthodox wife she managed to ingratiate herself with the right mother, and she arranged for her a bread place.

Children in such families, as a rule, are more than two. Of course, the mother is in command of everything, and this is inevitable, because. father is at work around the clock, laboring, so as not to be accused, that "he does not care about his own, and especially about his family." A father in such a family is simply not able to follow how his children grow and are brought up. All this is done exclusively by the mother, for whom this is also an excuse not to work herself.

In terms of pedagogical skills, Orthodox mothers are dominated by dense ignorance and obscurantism. Screaming, insults, humiliation of children, beatings and punishments are in the order of things and are considered necessary and correct "educational" measures. It is not surprising and significant that Orthodox parents massively opposed the introduction of criminal liability of parents for beating their children (Article 116 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation in new edition 2016): they know this very well for themselves, but not only do they not consider beating and humiliating their children a “sin”, they confidently consider it their inalienable right and the right measure of education. They consider their children to be their property. Abraham was ready to cut his son's throat, so were they: if we want, we can beat to death, these are our children, we gave birth to them, we do what we want. Such morals reign in Orthodox families. Subservience, servility, groveling towards the strong and superior, and violence, humiliation and neglect towards the weak and non-violent - such morals are brought up by Orthodox mothers in their children from an early age. And one of such subordinate and disenfranchised subjects within the family is the husband and father.

A separate area of activity within the church is monasteries.

convents now more than men. If in the early 1990s, when monastic life was just reviving, monks and nuns were forced to work hard on construction and agricultural work, while receiving neither wages nor social benefits laid down for ordinary workers, now the situation is radically different. Monasteries today are extremely generously sponsored from all sides: merchants, business, high-ranking officials (such as the head of Russian Railways Yakunin, for example), a political party " United Russia”, government state, regional and local municipal grants and subsidies flow into the monasteries like a full-flowing river. Plus, the trading activities of monasteries, which are not subject to any taxes at all, bring huge profits: at the “Orthodox fairs” constantly taking place in all regions of Russia and through their own networks of shops and shops, monasteries sell anything: consecrated land from the graves of elders, bricks in the walls of churches under construction, icons, utensils, books, candles, products Agriculture- mainly honey, but also other products. The cost of this production is often equal to zero (land from the grave) or equal to the cost of food for "workers" - laity who come to the monasteries and work in the monastery for free (often they themselves pay for their own food, although usually the food is still at the expense of the monastery, Or rather, his sponsors). On the construction work the monks have not been working for a long time, for the construction the monasteries hire construction organizations for quite a lot of money, again flowing from sponsors or from the state budget.

In such a situation, it is easy to see that life in a monastery for its leadership is a sinecure or the lifestyle of aristocratic oligarchs, the “cells” of abbots of monasteries today are apartments finished at the level of five-star hotels with all possible amenities and achievements of technology and comfort. And as we have already noted, most of the monasteries in Russia are women's monasteries. This means that a female abbess leads the monastery. According to the canon, a woman does not have the right to perform divine services and the sacraments (confession, communion, etc.), therefore, a male priest is assigned to each monastery. In a canonical sense, he should have more weight than a female abbess, because. purely theoretically, he can deprive the abbess of communion, accuse her of violating the commandments, and even excommunicate her from the church altogether, but in practice the priest is completely dependent on the abbess, who determines the salary of the priest. If suddenly the abbess dislikes the priest, she can achieve his dismissal by all possible ways: from the use of personal connections in the metropolis, to the accusation of the priest of "harassment of the sisters" or "service not according to the canon."

Rivers of money flow from the monasteries to the metropolia. donations to monasteries, the leadership of the metropolis, as a rule, takes first for itself, and then from the “common heap” allocates its share to the monastery, but in the hands of the abbess there are many ways not to show all donations and income. Therefore, the metropolia is interested in "friendship" with the abbess, as well as the abbess with the metropolis. For them, this is a guarantee of mutually beneficial cooperation in the section of astronomical profits. An individual priest, if he suddenly doesn’t like something in the monastery, in such a situation will simply be crushed and thrown out both by the abbess and the metropolia.

The power of the abbess of the monastery within its walls is unlimited. No man is her order here. Often these positions are held as abbesses by very young women who openly despise men, man-hatred is so openly demonstrated by them that it is considered the norm. If men work in a monastery or at a temple of such a monastery (watchmen, technical workers, "workers" - in fact, farm laborers, etc.), then the abbess treats them like cattle, not only not showing the slightest respect, but a little or spitting in their faces just because they are "male cattle" and she is a female nun. Chauvinism towards men in such monasteries is cultivated at the level of fascist concentration camps, but it is surprising that there is a huge number of men who consider themselves really somehow "guilty" before women, "sinful", and therefore obliged to endure such a boorish attitude towards themselves from the outside women, they voluntarily work for free or for symbolic money at such monasteries, considering it "spirituality".

This is the situation that prevails in contemporary Russian Orthodoxy. This is a matriarchy, with practically unlimited power of a woman: wife and mother. One could continue this analysis and trace the reasons for this state of affairs, but this is a topic for another article. I will be glad for your comments and remarks, which will allow me to finalize this article and write new ones.

Men who have survived the betrayal of women and divorce often turn to religion for moral and spiritual support, and knowing that the New Testament forbids divorce and considers a man as the head of the family, they believe that Orthodoxy protects the interests of men, supports patriarchal orders in the family. Is it so?

I have been inside the Orthodox Church for many years as a believer, I have completed a two-year course of Orthodox catechists, I have known many priests, and therefore I know both the theory and practice of the modern Russian Orthodox Church thoroughly. Based on my own experience, I can unequivocally say: under the lubok patriarchal scenery, Orthodoxy has long established itself the cruelest totalitarian matriarchy with the unquestioning power of a woman in all spheres of private, family, public and proper church life.

Holy Scripture forbids women to be priests (to perform the sacraments), therefore there are no female priests, bishops in the church, the entire church hierarchy consists entirely of men. This gives the impression that the church is a patriarchal institution in which men have power over women. But this is far from true. Where is the catch? The fact is that from the very beginning of the church service, from the time of studying at the seminary, the future priest must either find a wife and marry before entering the rank, or become a monk. Wives for priests are prepared in special women's church (diocesan) schools. Girls formally study there to become choir directors, choristers, seamstresses, sisters of mercy, etc., receive a secondary vocational education, and informally they are prepared to marry seminary students - future priests. Teaching in women's church schools is conducted, as a rule, by women - the wives of priests, often high-ranking ones, and women also carry out moral and psychological treatment of future priests' wives. And here, these girls are essentially being trained to manipulate and power their future husband precisely through those commandments that were originally supposed to ensure the husband's dominance in the family, but in the hands of manipulator women turned into the exact opposite.

The rule that the husband is the head of the family, women interpret exclusively through the words of the Apostle Paul from the Epistle to Timothy that “ But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has renounced the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. (1 Tim. 5:8). The fact that Christ in the New Testament says the exact opposite: “ a man's enemies are his household. Whoever loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and whoever loves a son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me”(Matthew 10:36-37) they don’t remember. From the very beginning, the priest's wife is taken to completely control his entire life and service, and first of all she makes sure that the young priest does not miss the possible money flowing to him from the parishioners, especially expensive gifts and large donations from wealthy people. Not to take offerings, - wives inspire their husbands to Orthodox priests - means not to care about the family, and this is the gravest sin in their hierarchy of values.

The material well-being of a priest depends primarily on the benevolence of the church authorities, who can put him into service in a profitable place, a profitable church, a rich parish, or take him to work in the office of the metropolia, where in general you need to do one easy office job or public relations for a salary , which may be higher than that of other officials or the income of an average businessman. If the young priest falls out of favor, he can be sent to serve in a distant village, where the parish consists of two grandmothers, and the priest will not be able to collect anything for his salary, he will eat at the expense of subsistence farming and lead an existence on the verge of starvation, such happens too.

Naturally, priests' wives know about all this in advance, and from the very beginning of their married life, or rather, even before it begins, they set a condition for their husbands: either you will be loyal and submissive, you will obey everything that your superiors order you, you will take any offerings from any donors, even if they are cannibals and child-killers, and thereby ensure the material well-being of the wife, or the priest will not have any wife at all, and he will either have to accept monasticism, or even refuse the priesthood (an unmarried or not a monk to receive the rank can not). Marriage for a priest is blackmail on the part of his wife, it is a deal of loyalty and consent to everything. As a result, from the very beginning of the church service, we get a total, complete baborab. From the first days in the church, a young priest learns to obey his wife in everything, to fulfill all her instructions and whims, because she can demand a divorce at any time and for her this will not entail any absolutely unfavorable consequences in terms of career or status, and her husband - a priest after a divorce can be defrocked and banned from serving. For a man in his 40s and 50s, who knows nothing in his life except to wave a censer and chant incomprehensible texts, defrocking is the collapse of his whole life, unemployment, poverty, and the absence of a pension in old age. Therefore, the priest will climb out of his skin, but only to please his wife and not cause her displeasure.

The idea that the priest is the head of the family, that his wife is “afraid” of him, walks “on tiptoe” in front of him, and his children obey him in everything and stand in front of him “on the line”, following all instructions - this is a popular popular myth that does not have nothing to do with reality. All the rules of the Holy Scripture lie quietly on the shelf in a book, while the de facto head of the priest's family is his wife. She manages the family budget, promoting her husband as a business project: finding rich donors and philanthropists, attracting grants from various foundations, obtaining gifts from rich sponsors - all these are the initiatives of the wife, who uses her husband, a priest, as a bait and a sign under which money is accepted and gifts. I know an example when even in a remote village rich sponsors built a luxurious cottage for a priest, stuffed it with high-end high-end electronics, built a temple, provided the priest with a salary that allows him to lead a comfortable life with constant trips to rest abroad. Of course, the wife benefits from this, because. without her priest-husband, she would never have been able to get such really untold riches for nothing, just like that, in fact, for nothing, purely for the “brand”.

If public opinion still retains the stereotype of an Orthodox woman as a homely mess, wrapped from head to toe in scarves and long skirts, then in practice it is also just a decoration. Mother's long dresses and skirts are now bought in boutiques and cost several times more than the everyday clothes of ordinary parishioners. If the vestments of a priest for worship can cost about 300,000 rubles, then their wives do not skimp on their outfits and can spend many times more. If ordinary “workhorse bees” from the cohort of mothers are unpretentious old pensioners who work for free on washing floors in churches and cleaning candlesticks and wearing one gray-black dress for decades, then the core of mother’s circle is made up of young and ambitious girls and women, wives other priests or “near-church” girls who smell money, power and comfort, and try to extract these bonuses from friendship with mother. They value themselves very highly, they always dress at the highest level, elegantly and stylishly, their skirts, of course, will be long, but from an expensive boutique or made to order from expensive fabrics. They like to relax in style, if, for example, it is a trip to nature on bicycles, then on expensive multi-speed bicycles, in expensive tracksuits, with expensive smartphones and SLR cameras.

The priest can’t oppose anything to this mother’s party and the “support group”. If he hints at something that is not beneficial for his wife, refuse to dance to her tune, she can raise a wave of “indignation” through her aunts-grandmothers, who will scribble dozens of complaints from the priest to the diocese and he will seriously get into trouble. Therefore, the priest, both in his professional activities and in family life, takes the role of a henpecked and a complete baborab. The whole modern church system determines this position of men in the church.

It was we who analyzed the situation in the families of priests. AT families of ordinary believers, of course, all this is different, but the pattern remains: what the more fanatical the believers, the more matriarchal the "patriarchal" Orthodox family. In strongly believing families, husbands, as a rule, are complete henpecked. Wives carry water on them, the husband leaves for work at 6 am, returns at 8 pm, sleeps and goes to work again. This is his "duty to feed the family", which was instilled in him by his comfortably settled Orthodox wife, who, as a rule, either does not work at all herself, or is engaged in some unpretentious work, such as teaching music to preschool children in Sunday school, which does not require special efforts or abilities, but often well paid, if such an Orthodox wife managed to ingratiate herself with the right mother and she arranged for her a bread place.

In terms of pedagogical skills, Orthodox mothers are dominated by dense ignorance and obscurantism. Screaming, insults, humiliation of children, beatings and punishments are in the order of things and are considered necessary and correct "educational" measures. It is not surprising and significant that it was Orthodox parents who massively opposed the introduction of criminal liability of parents for beating their children (Article 116 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation in the new edition of 2016): they know this very well for themselves, but not only do not consider the beating and humiliation of their children "sin", they confidently consider it their inalienable right and the right measure of education. They consider their children to be their property. Abraham was ready to cut his son's throat, so were they: if we want, we can beat to death, these are our children, we gave birth to them, we do what we want. Such morals reign in Orthodox families. Subservience, servility, groveling towards the strong and superior, and violence, humiliation and neglect towards the weak and non-violent - such morals are brought up by Orthodox mothers in their children from an early age. And one of such subordinate and disenfranchised subjects within the family is the husband and father.

A separate area of activity within the church is monasteries. There are now more women's monasteries than men's. If in the early 1990s, when monastic life was just reviving, monks and nuns were forced to work hard at construction and agricultural work, while receiving neither wages nor social benefits due to ordinary workers, now the situation is radically different. Monasteries today are extremely generously sponsored from all sides: businessmen, business, high-ranking officials (such as the head of Russian Railways Yakunin, for example), the United Russia political party, government state, regional and local municipal grants and subsidies flow into the monasteries like a full-flowing river . Plus, the trading activities of monasteries, which are not subject to any taxes at all, bring huge profits: at the “Orthodox fairs” constantly taking place in all regions of Russia and through their own networks of shops and shops, monasteries sell anything: consecrated land from the graves of elders, bricks in the walls of churches under construction, icons, utensils, books, candles, agricultural products - mainly honey, but also other products. The cost of this production is often equal to zero (land from the grave) or equal to the cost of food for "workers" - laity who come to the monasteries and work in the monastery for free (often they themselves pay for their own food, although usually the food is still at the expense of the monastery, Or rather, his sponsors). The monks have not been working on construction work for a long time, for construction monasteries hire construction organizations for quite a lot of money, again flowing from sponsors or from the state budget.

In such a situation, it is easy to see that life in a monastery for its leadership is a sinecure or the lifestyle of aristocratic oligarchs, the “cells” of abbots of monasteries today are apartments finished at the level of five-star hotels with all possible amenities and achievements of technology and comfort. And as we have already noted, most of the monasteries in Russia are women's monasteries. This means that a female abbess leads the monastery. According to the canon, a woman does not have the right to perform divine services and the sacraments (confession, communion, etc.), therefore, a male priest is assigned to each monastery. In a canonical sense, he should have more weight than a female abbess, because. purely theoretically, he can deprive the abbess of communion, accuse her of violating the commandments, and even excommunicate her from the church altogether, but in practice the priest is completely dependent on the abbess, who determines the salary of the priest. If the abbess suddenly takes a dislike to the priest, she can achieve his dismissal in all possible ways: from using personal connections in the metropolis, to accusing the priest of “harassment of the sisters” or “service not according to the canon.”

As you know, families are of different types. In some, the opinion of the husband is considered the only true one, he must be respected and unquestioningly obey him. In others, everything happens the other way around: a woman, as a continuer of the family, is the main authority. And yet the most common until recently was the first of these types - patriarchal. Let's talk about it in more detail.

Interpretation of the term

patriarchal family This is the cell of society in which the man dominates. It usually consists of several generations of close relatives who live under the same roof and share a common life. During the time of Ivan the Terrible, one of the ministers of the church wrote a "guide" on how to competently manage the household, build relationships in the family. This book became practically a set of laws, immutable rules that family members had to follow. It was called "Domostroy" and included many instructions and even restrictions, most of which were intended for women. Men were given some freedom.

The patriarchal family is one of the oldest forms of unity of people. In fact, it represents the dependence of a wife on her husband and children on their parents. The dominance of a man is explained by his role in the family. He is the earner of livelihood, and the wife only organizes life. Children are brought up in strictness and respect for their parents.

Features of this type of family

Let us denote the difference between the patriarchal family. Its signs are as follows: the supremacy of a man, the economic superiority of the head of the family over his wife, and a clearly defined division of male and female responsibilities regarding the organization of a lifestyle.

In such a unit of society, there can be no question of spouses exchanging roles. For example, a husband will never run a household, and a wife will never work.

There are some other features that distinguish the patriarchal family. These signs are based on the fact that after the wedding, the son brings his wife to the house. Newlyweds do not live separately. They become part of the family, where the authority for them is the head of the family - oldest man kind.

It is this type of social cell that is built on respect and reverence for elders. It is not for nothing that in all countries where the traditional patriarchal family prevailed in different historical epochs, councils of elders often met to discuss all pressing problems.

Functions of this type of family

Let's move on to characterizing other features of this type of social cell. The patriarchal type of family performs many functions. These include reproductive, educational, ideological and others. But one of the main ones is the economic function. She was the foundation of the family's survival.

Economic efficiency was achieved through the complete subordination of the wife to her husband. Often the personal desires of family members and even feelings were not a priority. main goal was the achievement and maintenance financial stability. A large number of people living under the same roof contributed to the harmonious management household and earn more profit.

The patriarchal family is one of the most stable cells of society. Changing feelings for a partner could not be a reason for divorce. This type of family was especially characteristic of the Christian worldview. Those who were going to get married sealed their marriage vows in the church and believed that they were responsible for it before God. Thus, divorce was practically out of the question.

The current state of the patriarchal family

In post-industrial society, the patriarchal family has practically ceased to exist. This is due to the emancipation of women, the ability to earn money on their own, to be economically independent from men. Because of this, the norms of marriage and the functions that spouses perform in the family have changed. The attitude of children towards parents has also changed. Increasingly, older family members face disrespect.

On the other hand, the development and change of social foundations brought to the fore the role individual. Each person has become more valuable regardless of the people around him, everyone has the opportunity to achieve what he wants. Today, an individual through his activity can change his own social status which would have been impossible a few centuries ago.

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