Page:Notes upon Russia (volume 1, 1851).djvu/284

 give a woman, I say, little credit for modesty, if she be seen by strangers or people out of doors. But shut up at home they do nothing but spin and sew, and have literally no authority or influence in the house. All the domestic work is done by the servants. Whatever is strangled by the hands of a woman, whether it be a fowl, or any other kind of animal, they abominate as unclean. The wives, however, of the poorer classes do the household work and cook. But if their husbands and the men-servants happen to be away, and they wish to strangle a fowl, they stand at the door holding the fowl, or whatever other animal it may be, and a knife, and generally beg the men that pass by to kill it. They are very seldom admitted into the churches, and still less frequently to friendly meetings, unless they be very old and free from all suspicion. On certain holidays, however, men allow their wives and daughters, as a special gratification, to meet in very pleasant meadows, where they seat themselves on a sort of wheel of fortune, and are moved alternately up and down, or they fasten a rope somewhere, with a seat to it, in which they sit, and are swung backwards and forwards; or they otherwise make merry with clapping their hands and singing songs, but they have no dances whatever.

There is at Moscow a certain German, a blacksmith, named Jordan, who married a Russian woman. After she had lived some time with her husband, she one day thus lovingly addressed him: "Why is it, my dearest husband, that you do not love me?" The husband replied: "I do love you passionately." "I have as yet," said she, "received no proofs of your love." The husband inquired what proofs she desired. Her reply was: "You have never beaten me." "Really," said the husband, "I did not think that blows were proofs of love; but, however, I will not fail even in this respect." And so not long after he beat her most cruelly; and confessed to me that after that process his wife showed much greater affection towards him. So he repeated the exercise fre-