The first decades of the 19th century in Serbia were not only marked by the struggle to create modernity States, but also by trying to shape it in a modern way society. Its neglect was one of the most difficult consequences of centuries of Ottoman rule. That is why the new national authorities started its arrangement from the very foundations - from marriage and families. Marriage regulations were among the first legal acts passed with the intention of disciplining Serbian society and putting it under control.
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In contrast to the countries of Western Europe, in which marriage responsibilities began to pass from the church to the state shortly after the French Revolution, in Serbia marriage and divorce remained the responsibility of the church authorities until the end of the Second World War. However, this did not mean a passive attitude of the state towards this institution. On the contrary, in addition to taking care of the observance of church regulations on marriage, she also undertook numerous measures aimed at suppressing marriage customs that she considered harmful to social development and progress.
Already in the first provisions aimed at regulating social relations, the necessity to eradicate harmful customs that "bring shame to the Serbian name among other Christian nations" was emphasized. In one act, the task of the state is to suppress "rude and ill-advised customs of our simple people", especially those that could cause "evil and misfortune" among the people, with the repeated remark that "such customs betray that the people are simple". They were not only "to the moral and material detriment of the people", but also "to the shame of our fatherland in front of the other civilized world". Eradicating what was considered backward and establishing an order that would bring Serbia closer to the ideal of a "Christian and polite Europe" was one of the important goals of the new national authorities; a goal that, as it turned out, was easier to proclaim than to implement.
The introduction of order into unruly social conditions and suppression of marital abuses began already in the first year of the First Serbian Uprising. Then a regulation was passed aimed at abducting girls. This custom was so widespread that in the code compiled by Proto Mateja Nenadović, the prohibition of kidnapping was placed right after the provision on murder: "Whoever kidnaps a girl by force... that groom, best man and old man are whipped to run", the Code states.
The ban on the kidnapping of girls at the very beginning of the uprising indicates its widespread use at the time. It is interesting that Karađorđe himself once married by kidnapping, and as a hajduk harambasha, he also married many members of his group in the same way. However, in the new political circumstances and in the new role of the national leader, he began the fight against customs that were not in accordance with the Christian concept of marriage. In a power of attorney from 1809, he ordered that the kidnapper be "captured by force and handed over to the elder", while the priest who would marry the kidnapped girl would be deprived of his rank and punished by death. Thus, kidnapping ceased to be a matter of "honor" and became a criminal offense.
A similar approach was applied in the fight against infanticide. Although this phenomenon was not unknown before, it was only with the creation of the modern state that a systematic fight against the murder of newborns, most often illegitimate children, began. The insurgent authorities have already declared that the murder of an illegitimate child is the murder of a man, which is followed by the death penalty "without any further mercy". At the same time, there was also a certain awareness of the unenviable social position of unmarried mothers. That's why a kind of "compromise solution" was recommended to them: if the mother is "very ashamed", she should leave the child "on the road where people pass by all the time", so that someone would accept and raise him. Even in the regulations passed in the following decades, their position was taken into account to some extent, so both for abortion and for the murder of an illegitimate child, a harsher punishment was provided for the one who would help the girl in this than for the girl herself.
Marriage arrangements were approached even more systematically after the end of the uprising period. Already in 1818, Prince Miloš issued the Decree on marriage in seven points. In her extensive introduction, the neglect of social conditions is described, which was particularly reflected in the attitude of parents towards female children at the time of marriage. At that time, it was a widespread custom to demand excessively large "gifts" from future sons-in-law, so the parents of their daughters, as stated at the beginning of the Regulation, "sold them like cattle from the barn". Instead of trying to get them married into good houses, where they would "find a good and peaceful life", it was important for them "only to be able to sell the girl according to their will and get a better profit from it". The consequences of such a practice were far-reaching: poor boys could not easily marry, girls were kidnapped or arbitrarily acquired by boys, and conflicts between families spread to the wider community.
In order to suppress the unfavorable consequences of the custom of "buying" girls, Prince Miloš limited the claims of girls' parents to 25 groschi. Those who would violate this regulation were threatened with "color" and payment of a double fine to the public treasury. Parents are also forbidden to ask future sons-in-law for "maiden suits". Both the content and the value of those "aljina" were often the subject of serious negotiations between families, and misunderstandings about them sometimes ended up in court.
Greater supervision over marriage should have been provided by the regulation according to which representatives of the secular and spiritual authorities - the village serf and the priest - had to be present at the proposal. It was the proposals, in the center of which was the gift of a girl, that were often a place for abuse, because a purchase was sometimes disguised as a gift.
...WEDDING AS INSPIRATION: Vladislav Titelbach, Wedding customs in Serbia in 1893.
The decree also reiterated the ban on abducting girls. It was ordered that the abducted girl be returned to her parents, and the kidnappers and their helpers were threatened with arrest and punishment "as the biggest criminals and murderers". The authorities did not only prohibit kidnapping, but also the imposition of parental will when choosing a spouse: "In order not to force a girl to marry a boy whom she does not love, and also not to forbid a boy to marry a girl he loves..., in this way the father and mother of their children are called murderers", it was stated in the Decree from 1818. Both in the case of kidnapping and in the case of parental coercion, one of the basic principles of Christian marriage - the free will of the future spouses - was violated.
And wedding celebrations became the subject of interest of the state authorities. It was considered that they last too long, that they are excessively spent on them and that they often end in conflicts between the wedding party. That's why it was prescribed that the wedding should not last longer than two days, with a note that on the second day "the wedding party already parted", and the groom could bring a maximum of four wedding guests per bride.
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However, these regulations were easier to pass than to implement. The marriage customs that the state sought to eradicate were deeply rooted, and its ability to suppress them in practice was limited. Some of these customs, such as buying girls, also had an economic background. The girl represented a significant labor force in the rural household, so the payment to her parents at the time of marriage was understood as compensation for the loss of a pair of working hands. To eradicate this custom, not only a legal ban was enough, but also a change in economic circumstances, which was a slow process. Therefore, in the reports of the local authorities in the following years, it was often stated that the Regulation was "disregarded and [people] remarrying their daughters and sisters and selling them like yarn".
Despite the difficulties in implementing marriage regulations or, more precisely, precisely because they were not respected enough, state authorities continued to issue them in the following decades. However, the change of entrenched customs was slow and depended more on gradual social and economic transformations than on the legal provisions themselves. The strength and rootedness of customs is also reflected in the fact that some of them, in a modified and symbolic form, have survived to this day. Thus, at many weddings even today, the bride is "purchased", although this "purchase" no longer has any economic or social weight, but is done only "for the sake of custom".
Marriage policy in the first decades of the 19th century was one of the important instruments in the efforts of the new Serbian state to establish order in society. Although the results of that policy were neither quick nor complete, it is precisely in this persistent struggle between regulations and customs that the beginning of a long-term process of social modernization is reflected.
