Customary Law as a Regulator of Marital Relations of Tatars-Mishars of the Republic of Mordovia

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of customary law as a regulator of marital relations of Tatars-Mishars living in the territory of the Republic of Mordovia. It examines the peculiarities of family relations on the basis of the rules of customary law of the Mishars, namely: conditions of marriage and various ways of its conclusion, the customary legal status of family members, their legal status, peculiarities of order in the family, explores some aspects of personal and property relations of spouses, reveals the peculiarities of relations between parents and children, family sections of Tatars-Mishars. Consideration of this issue is determined by the author chronologically and covers the second half of XIX – first half XX centuries, i.e., since the beginning of the study of the legal customs of the peoples living on the territory of Russia and their systematic scientific generalization. Although the majority of the inhabitants of the country have long used customs in their everyday life, including legal ones, but it was often ignored by the official circles, which, as it were, did not notice and did not recognize them as a source of law.