1926 Code on Marriage, the Family and Guardianship
1926년 혼인·가족·후견법전
The second Soviet family code, adopted by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on 19 November 1926 and in force from 1 January 1927. It gave unregistered de facto marriages rights to maintenance and common property, made divorce a matter of a simple notice to the registry office and restored adoption, to protect women and children left destitute under the New Economic Policy. A decree of 1944 abolished the recognition of de facto marriage.
In depth
The 1918 code had achieved much of what its authors wanted, but the social upheaval left by the First World War and the Civil War exposed its limits. In 1921 alone seven million orphans roamed the country, and when the New Economic Policy ended labour conscription, female unemployment soared and hundreds of thousands of women in unregistered unions were left without protection after a separation. A new draft was debated at two sessions of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee in 1925 and 1926, and Justice Commissar Kursky published The Family and the New Way of Life: Debates on the Draft of a New Code on the Family and Marriage in 1926. The code adopted on 19 November 1926 brought the term “de facto marital relations” into law.
Once cohabitation, a common household and a marital relationship shown to third parties or in letters were proved, such a union, like a registered marriage, barred another marriage, made property acquired together common and gave a right to maintenance for a set period after it ended. All property acquired during a marriage became common and was divided equally on divorce. Divorce no longer required a court: a notice by one spouse to the registry office was enough, and the other was merely informed. The marriage age was set at 18 for both sexes.
The code ended the “collective paternity” of 1918, under which several men could be made to pay maintenance when a child’s father could not be determined, and let a judge assign paternity; it widened maintenance obligations to children, parents, siblings and grandparents while limiting their duration, and restored adoption to deal with homeless children. It tied the family together in law more firmly than in 1918, but its jurists saw it not as a retreat from socialism but as a temporary measure to protect women and children while communal care had yet to materialise. Under Stalin the law of 1936 banned abortion and made divorce harder, and a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of 8 July 1944 deprived de facto marriages of legal force, recognising only registered ones.