Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/462

 43^ Modern Russian Popular Songs.

are described as roughly and cruelly treading on the right of their children to follow their own wishes in the matter of marriage. With bitter irony the young girl speaks of her parents : —


 * ' Yes, my mother is very fond of me,

And father is even twice as good,

Every evening he stands at the door

And watches over me with a club."

Frequently it is the interference of the parents which frus- trates the marriage arranged by the two young people : —

" To be sure it was not of his own accord

That my lover went and dropped me,

But he has a troublesome mother,

Who does not allow him to take me." The hardships resulting from the organisation of the famil)' life of the peasants are felt particularly by the women. The position of the Russian women under various con- ditions is described in many cJiastushki, in which one can feel the suppressed distress, the endless sorrow of the scolded and downtrodden woman.

During the lifetime of the parents, the young girl works at home, and on the farm of her father. She lives under the roof of her parents, though not always very happily, but more or less free from troubles. Her position in her own family becomes difficult and joyless in the event of the death of her parents, when she comes under the control of her brothers : —

" I certainly was born unfortunate,

I'm not the only girl in my brother's home,

My brothers are collecting finery,

But they keep it for their daughters."

In another little song the young girl complains that "how- ever much she works for her brothers she never earns any- thing for herself, and that it is quite useless for her to make any effort." The orphan girl is often forced to go into service with strangers : —