Gender Ideas in the Late Nineteenth Century

All these changes–the movement of women into the paid‑labor force, the increasing numbers of housewives in the cities, the development of female‑dominated professions, the ongoing discussions among the educated and in the mass media of the woman question, the growing opposition to the status quo–led to the development of a generation of female activists whose multifarious contributions to late imperial society will be the subject of the next chapter. They also affected Russia’s version of the cult of domesticity. The dominant ideals stood firm: women were still supposed to manage their households efficiently, exercise loving supervision over their children, obey their husbands, and set a moral example to all family members. Natalia Grot, a noblewoman, enumerated the female virtues in this description of her mother: “Her intellect was outstanding, remarkable for a woman, and her feelings were deep and strong. She was composed, usually quiet, and rarely expressed herself. Her thinking was exquisitely noble and elevated, and her devotion to my father and her family was immutable. A careful, energetic housekeeper with a great sense of practicality, she restrained my father’s enthusiasms.”⁶⁰

Many members of the Russian elite in the late nineteenth century espoused the child‑centered conceptions of parenting that were gaining popularity among propertied Europeans. Parents were advised to focus less on discipline and more on fostering children’s emotional and intellectual development. They were also to spend more time with their offspring. Grot summed up this revised ideal as she remembered her childhood in the early nineteenth century: “Our family life in the country was patriarchal, full of love, peace, and piety, and for us children, lively activity and merriment. Our parents and grandparents always put us first.”⁶¹ Grot did not seem aware that “putting children first” was a new idea, one that would have appalled a traditional patriarch.

Grot’s belief that the ideal woman was a frugal steward of family resources was also being undermined. Across Europe in the late nineteenth century, the upper‑class woman was urged to show off her husband’s economic success by elaborately decorating herself and her home. Russian writers produced scores of housekeeping manuals instructing women in this new consumerism. Magazines carried advertisements and articles on the latest fashions in clothing and home décor; mail‑order catalogues made these goods accessible even in faraway Siberian cities. Women were also counseled on how to display themselves in public. An 1890 etiquette book advised female theater‑goers, “It is permissible to look freely through one’s lorgnette at the stage. However, it is better for young women to look primarily at the actresses, and they should avoid watching the love scenes or looking at low‑cut gowns. Moreover, they should refrain from looking frequently around the hall through their lorgnettes; their role is to stimulate delight and admiration.”⁶²

This late nineteenth‑century elaboration on the cult of domesticity, prevalent across Europe in the fin de siècle, was for the propertied, not the poor. A working‑class woman might see the delightful ladies gliding up the steps of the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, she might even have dressed her mistress for such occasions, but she knew that the lessons on stimulating admiration were not meant for her. When a working woman shopped, she bought necessities. As for nurturing children, she counted herself lucky if she could keep hers alive. Mother love was still highly regarded in her neighborhood, as was a mother’s authority. So were strength, endurance, diligence, and frugality, all the ancient ideals of womanhood.

Notions about working‑class masculinity were developing in the cities. Among skilled men, such as printers and metalworkers, there was a desire, shared with their counterparts elsewhere in Europe, to distinguish themselves from the newly arrived migrants from the countryside who made up the majority of urban workers. Prompted by self‑help manuals, these elite workers argued that men should be assessed according to long‑standing masculine ideals, such as diligence, mastery of work skills, and ability to provide for their families, and also according to their compliance with urban standards of cultured behavior. Working men should treat women with kindness and spend time off with their families rather than their drinking buddies. They should bathe regularly, learn how to use a handkerchief rather than wiping their noses on their sleeves, speak grammatically, eschew vulgarities and profanity, and read books and newspapers. For workers all over industrializing Europe in the late nineteenth century, this conception of the “respectable worker” was part of an agenda of social mobility. If men of humble origins worked hard, many believed, and if they acquired education and social polish, they could get out of the slums and into the ranks of the prosperous and successful.⁶³

Many women of all social ranks approved of the notion that husbands should treat wives with more consideration. Their longing for a kinder, gentler masculinity is documented by the huge increase in the number of women in the Russian Empire who sought to end their marriages in the late nineteenth century. Between thirty and forty thousand women petitioned the government for legal separation from their husbands between 1884 and 1914. In 1893, 88 percent of the petitioners for separation were women, and of that group, 80 percent were city residents who had been born peasants. In Lithuania, women made up 60 percent of the plaintiffs for divorce, and 45 percent of them were from the middling ranks of urban society, the working class, and the peasantry. Elsewhere in the Russian Empire, more Muslim women than ever before were requesting marital dissolution.⁶⁴

Barbara Engel and Gregory Freeze have found that women asked to be freed from husbands who, they charged, had been abusive tyrants instead of respectful, loving companions. “My husband,” one complainant declared, “in everyday life is extremely insufferable, a despot, nit‑picking, and coarse.” A few women made still more radical claims, saying that they wanted to end their marriages so that they could “live completely free in all respects.” Legal separation and divorce were still very difficult to obtain, so women who sought it were unusually determined and perhaps unusually abused. The fact that they came from all Russia’s social classes and included Catholics, Muslims, Orthodox, and Protestants suggests that the belief that marriage should be based on love and comradeship was spreading in the cities, as was the idea that a wife should be able to liberate herself from a husband who mistreated her. Barbara Engel has found that two‑thirds of these women lived in St. Petersburg and Moscow, a testimony to the liberal atmosphere of the two capitals and the greater access there to legal help.⁶⁵