The Russian women were kept secluded in women's quarters as they are
in China, but they remained a member of their own family. A wife's
duty was "to obey her husband as the slave obeys his master," and she
was taught to think of herself as her master's property. He had the
right to punish her as he did his children or his slaves. The priest
Silvester advises the husband not to use sticks that are too thick or
tipped with iron, nor to whip her before his men, but to correct her
moderately and in private. No Russian woman dared object to being
beaten. A Russian proverb says: "I love you like my soul, and I dust
you like my jacket."
The men wore oriental tunics or robes, and a long beard; the women
painted their faces. Ivan the Terrible said that to shave the beard
was "a sin that the blood of all the martyrs could not cleanse. Was it
not to defile the image of man created by God?"
There was a general belief in magic and witchcraft; sorcerers were
burned alive in a cage. Ivan, although in advance of his age, was not
free from superstition. The art of medicine was, of course, still in
its infancy, and those who practiced it were in constant danger (p. 126)
of their lives, because if they did not cure a patient, they might
suffer for it.
Both the nobles and the people were addicted to the vice of
drunkenness. No one paid any attention when a person, rich or poor,
young or old, fell down in the street from the effects of drink. This
is what the priests said of this vice: "My brethren, what is worse
than drunkenness? You lose memory and reason like a madman who does
not know what he is doing. The drunkard is senseless; he lies like a
corpse. If you speak to him he does not answer. Think of his poor soul
which grows foul in its vile body which is its prison.... To drink is
lawful and is to the glory of God, who has given us wine to make us
rejoice."
The Metropolitan of Moscow, until a Patriarch was appointed, was
supposed to be the head of the Church, but the czar held the real
power. There were two classes of priests: The Black Clergy lived as
monks in monasteries, some of which were exceedingly wealthy; they
were forbidden to marry, and the bishops were appointed from among
them. The White Clergy lived among the people and were compelled to
marry. Most of them were grossly ignorant. The same Englishman quoted
before, Mr. Fletcher, says of these priests: "As for exhorting or
instructing their flock, they have neither the habit of it nor the
talent for it, for all the clergy are as profoundly ignorant of the
Word of God as of all other learning."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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