When a man wants to inspect the bride himself, and the parents grant the request, knowing that she is fair and that they need not be ashamed of her, but the groom, having taken no liking to her, decries her with damaging and injurious words, and thus keeps other suitors away from her,--and the bride’s parents complain to the Patriarch or authorities: these institute an inquiry, and having found the man guilty, marry him to the girl by force; but if he has married another girl before the complaint has been entered, the girl’s disgrace is taken from her by an ukase. When a man marries off his daughter or sister, and gives her a large dowry in serfs and patrimony, and that daughter or sister, having borne no children, or having borne some who have all died, dies herself,--the dowry is all taken from her husband and is turned over to those who had married her off. But if she leaves a son or daughter, the dowry is, for the sake of her child, not taken from her husband. Gentle reader! Wonder not, it is nothing but the truth when I say that nowhere in the whole world is there such deception practised with marriageable girls as in the kingdom of Muscovy; there does not exist there the custom, as in other countries, for the suitor to see and sue for the bride himself. The boyárs and Near People have in their houses 100, or 200, or 300, or 500, or 1000 servants, male and female, according to their dignity and possessions. These servants receive a yearly salary, if they are married, 2, 3, 5 or 10 roubles, according to their services, and their wearing apparel, and a monthly allowance of bread and victuals; they live in their own rooms in the court of the boyár’s house. The best of these married servants are sent out by the boyárs every year, by rotation, to their estates and villages, with the order to collect from their peasants the taxes and rents. The unmarried older servants receive some small wages, but the younger ones receive nothing; all the unmarried servants get their wearing apparel, hats, shirts and boots; the older of these servants live in the farther lower apartments, and receive their food and drink from the kitchen; on holidays they receive two cups of brandy each. The female servants who are widows remain living in the houses of their husbands, and they receive a yearly wage and a monthly allowance of food; other widows and girls stay in the rooms of the boyárs’ wives and daughters, and they receive their wearing apparel, and their food from the boyár’s kitchen.