Page:Notes upon Russia (volume 1, 1851).djvu/283

 tism. If any one marry a second wife, and become a bigamist, they allow it indeed, but scarcely think it a lawful marriage. They do not permit a third marriage, except for some weighty cause; but a fourth they allow to nobody, and do not even consider it Christian. They admit divorces, and grant a writ of repudiation, but they mostly conceal it, because they know it to be contrary to religion and the statutes.

We have said a little before, that the prince himself repudiated his wife Salomea on account of barrenness, and thrust her into a convent, and married Helen, daughter of the Knes Basil Lynski. Some years ago, a certain Duke Basil Bielski had fled from Lithuania into Moscow, and his friends detained his wife, who was young and recently married, a long time at his own house (for they thought that he would return again from love and desire of his bride). Bielski referred the case of his absent wife to the council of the metropolitan. After receiving the result of their deliberation, the metropolitan gave for answer: "Since the fault was not yours, but rather your wife's and your relations', that you could not have her company, I will give you the benefit of the law, and release you from her." On hearing this, he soon after married another woman, daughter of the princely race of the Resanenses, by whom he had some sons, whom we now see in great authority about the prince.

They do not call it adultery unless one have the wife of another. Love between those that are married is for the most part lukewarm, especially among the nobles and princes, because they marry girls whom they have never seen before; and being engaged in the service of the prince, they are compelled to desert them, and become corrupted with disgraceful connexions with others.

The condition of the women is most miserable; for they consider no woman virtuous unless she live shut up at home, and be so closely guarded, that she go out nowhere. They