Family traditions of Jews of Belarus

In the modern period, the need for a comprehensive study of the social culture of the ethnos and its important component, the family, is growing. At the same time there was no sufficient attention given to study of family relations of the Jews of Belarus. In ethnological science there are no special scientific papers on this issue. Meanwhile, the identification of religious customs that affect marriage and family relations, age of marriage and conditions for its increase, mechanisms of marriage, reasons for maintaining the stability of marriages and reducing the number of divorces among Jews using structural, historical and functional research methods is of particular scientific interest and has practical importance. Marital and family relations of the Jews of Belarus in the XVI – in the beginning of the XX century established religious practices (betrothal of young men from 14 and girls from 12–13 years old, forcing a spiritual court to marry a 20-year-old bachelor, disapproval of marriages for the sake of wealth and marriages between old and young). In the second half of the XIX century with the weakening of the influence of the rabbinate on public life and the increase in the general educational level, men began to marry at the age of 18, and women – in 16 years. Shadhonims (matchmakers) were engaged in arranging marriages, who introduced suitable couples and helped draw up a preliminary and marriage contract. Families were large and strong. Adultery infidelity rarely violated. Violators punished the spiritual court by fasting, physically and publicly humiliated. There was a custom “conditional divorce”. The husband who was leaving for a long time left a letter of divorce to his wife, which said that if he did not return by the deadline, the wife could be free. For men, the process of divorce was simplified. It was enough for them to give his wife a check sheet (“het”). With the weakening of the influence of these customs, the number of divorced women declined.