es a large family can bear temporary adversity much
more successfully than a small one. These are principles of world-wide
application, but in the life of the Russian peasantry they have a
peculiar force. Each adult peasant possesses, as I shall hereafter
explain, a share of the Communal land, but this share is not sufficient
to occupy all his time and working power. One married pair can easily
cultivate two shares--at least in all provinces where the peasant
allotments are not very large. Now, if a family is composed of two
married couples, one of the men can go elsewhere and earn money, whilst
the other, with his wife and sister-in-law, can cultivate the two
combined shares of land. If, on the contrary a family consists merely
of one pair with their children, the man must either remain at home--in
which case he may have difficulty in finding work for the whole of his
time--or he must leave home, and entrust the cultivation of his share
of the land to his wife, whose time must be in great part devoted to
domestic affairs.

In the time of serfage the proprietors clearly perceived these and
similar advantages, and compelled their serfs to live together in large
families. No family could be broken up without the proprietor's consent,
and this consent was not easily obtained unless the family had assumed
quite abnormal proportions and was permanently disturbed by domestic
dissension. In the matrimonial affairs of the serfs, too, the majority
of the proprietors systematically exercised a certain supervision,
not necessarily from any paltry meddling spirit, but because their own
material interests were thereby affected. A proprietor would not,
for instance, allow the daughter of one of his serfs to marry a serf
belonging to another proprietor--because he would thereby lose a female
labourer--unless some compensation were offered. The compensation might
be a sum of money, or the affair might be arranged on the principle of
reciprocity by the master of the bridegroom allowing one of his female
serfs to marry a serf belonging to the master of the bride.

However advantageous the custom of living in large families may appear
when regarded from the economic point of view, it has very serious
defects, both theoretical and practical.

That families connected by the ties of blood-relationship and marriage
can easily live together in harmony is one of those social axioms which
are accepted universally and believed by nobody. We all