Family and marital values of urban residents of Russia at the beginning of the XX century: creation and statistical analysis of the database of marriage announcements

The article is devoted to the consideration of family and marital values of urban residents at the beginning of the XX century in dynamics. The source of the research is the materials of the Moscow "Marriage Newspaper" (1906-1918), namely, marriage announcements. The practice of introducing the materials of marriage announcements into scientific circulation is quite widespread in the social sciences and humanities. This demonstrates the great possibilities of studying on their basis the social processes associated with the transformation of family values, gender roles, stereotypes in the field of marriage, partner choice and others. However, researchers pay the most attention to modern marriage ads, or rather, the so–called dating ads. The possibilities of studying marriage declarations in historical science have not been fully disclosed, therefore, the purpose of this article is to consider family and marriage values at the beginning of the XX century based on such a source in dynamics. Based on a sample of newspaper issues, an analysis of the structure of ads was carried out and the main characteristics that the authors indicate when describing themselves and a potential partner were identified. Based on these characteristics, a database was created and statistical processing of information was carried out, which showed that when choosing a marriage partner, the greatest attention is paid to three aspects: economic, psychological and aesthetic. Consideration of the frequency of occurrence of three main aspects has shown that both the most calm and the most turbulent years in the history of Russia in the period from 1906-1917 are characterized by general trends. However, an assessment of general trends in the dynamics of the frequency of use of the three main components of ads showed a gradual decrease in the role of the economic and aesthetic component and an increase in the role of the psychological one. The analysis of separately female and separately male ads revealed gender stereotypes in the perception of the marriage model. According to the results obtained, the pages of marriage ads reflect a fairly traditional perception of marriage by both men and women, except for the fact that men, like women, were looking for mostly well-off partners.

periodical press, Moscow Marriage Newspaper, marriage announcement, acquaintance, family and marriage values, urban residents, the author of the ad, potential partner, the database, statistical analysis