Marriage

MARRIAGE, a more or less lasting union of a man and woman based on sexual cohabitation, creating certain rights and obligations for them (in regard to division of labor, ownership and use of property, and upbringing of children) and receiving social-state sanction. In contrast to bourgeois marriage legislation, which ensures the rights of the husband, complicates divorce, and denies the rights of children born out of wedlock, the Soviet code establishes equality of the parties, equal rights for registered and unregistered unions, and provides preferential protection for the weaker party - the wife and children (see Alimony). To a certain extent determining birth rates, influencing the health of spouses and offspring, marriage has enormous individual and social-hygienic significance. Questions of marriage hygiene are very complex and have been only partially developed. The age at which one enters marriage plays a substantial role. With an increase in this age, the ability to reproduce and the duration of the reproductive period decrease. Thus, in Budapest, according to Korosi, the number of children per 100 marriages was: Husband's age 25-30 years and wife's age 25 years - 35.6

Husband's age 35-40 years - 27.5 According to Printzing, who studied birth rate tables in Berlin, the highest marital fertility falls at the age of 25-29 years. Late entry into marriage is associated with an increase in the duration of premarital sexual life, accompanied by a greater spread of venereal diseases. Therefore, an increase in the age of marriage (which sharply manifested itself during the imperialist war) represents a negative phenomenon in terms of its social-hygienic consequences. On the other hand, marriages that are too early are also dangerous for spouses and offspring. Thus, according to Westergaard, marriages that are too early for men are associated with lower child survival rates, and an increase in abortions and stillbirths. Despite the lack of exhaustive research in this area and the close intertwining of biological and social conditions, which are not sufficiently distinguished and analyzed, various authors consider it possible to establish the most favorable age for entering marriage for women from 20 to 25 years, and for men several years later.

The legislation of various countries establishes only the lower age limit for marriage, which varies depending on racial, geographical, and other conditions determining the completion of sexual maturity. In the RSFSR this age is 18 years for a man and 17 years for a woman, in Germany - 21 years and 16 years. The maximum upper age for marriage, as well as the permissible age difference, are not established by law, since sharp deviations here are not so frequent, and the boundaries of individual fluctuations in the preservation of productive capacity are very wide. The presence in one of the partners of diseases transmitted by heredity, contagious diseases that can be transmitted to the spouse and offspring through family infection (tuberculosis) or through damage to the germ plasma (venereal diseases), severe chronic diseases, mental illnesses, abnormalities or inconsistencies in development and function of the sexual sphere, preventing normal sexual cohabitation, require medical intervention in matters related to the conclusion of marriage. Even Plato, Campanella, and I. Frank pointed to the need for socially mandatory regulatory functions of physicians in concluding marriage. However, in practice such medical regulation is difficult.

If in the presence of such conditions as incurable venereal disease or the acute stage of tuberculosis, a physician can insist on the inadvisability of concluding marriage at the present moment, then with the current state of medical knowledge and often doubtful case histories, there are rarely grounds for categorical positive indications. Therefore, regulation is limited only to certain prohibitory instructions, and the scope and form of it vary greatly in different countries. The oldest and most widespread is the prohibition of marriage between close relatives (see Incest). The most widely applied prohibitory regulation exists in a number of states in North America (first in 1895 in the state of Connecticut; at present in more than 20 states). The prohibition to marry extends to the mentally ill, the feeble-minded, epileptics, those with venereal diseases, and the destitute. Laws close to this were also enacted in Sweden (1915), Norway (1918), and Denmark (1922). However, only in a few places (for example, in the state of North Dakota or Colorado) is a medical certificate required⁴, in most places a statement from the parties entering marriage is sufficient.

The legislation of the RSFSR provides for the obligation of mutual notification by the marrying parties regarding their state of health. In Germany there is no such obligation; there are well-developed consultations on marriage matters (Eheberatungsstellen). One such consultation (in Dresden) usually issues certificates of the following content: 'This certifies that such and such, born such and such, such and such place, as far as I can determine at present, is: absolutely fit for marriage, fit with restrictions, at present unfit, permanently unfit'. Those with venereal diseases and tuberculosis are considered temporarily unfit; healthy persons but with pathological heredity representing a threat to offspring are considered fit with restrictions; persons with severe hereditary diseases, severe disorders of the sexual sphere, etc., are considered permanently unfit. It is still premature to judge the results of legislative and social-hygienic measures in the field of marriage health improvement; the movement has received wide distribution only in recent years. The hygiene of sexual life in marriage is a special case of the hygiene of sexual life (see). The rightless position of children born out of wedlock (see) in bourgeois countries is associated with special dangers to their life and health. - See also Marriage rate of the population.