anything was out of tune with the newly created economic situation and family structures, it was the Ukase of 1944, not the rules of the Family Code of 1926 that it set aside. Also, th Ukase was not a concession to ' a popular and conservative current represented by peasant trad ition, that wanted to return to more conventional forms of marriage 72 At that time the regime was less interested than ever in the wishes of the population. Moreover, the trad itional patriarchal family structure was already very much dead From a political point of view, there could not have been a less suitable moment to roll back the reform than in the midd le of the Second World War, when families were separated on an unprecedented scale and the numbe of children born outside wedlock increased dramatically. The purpose of the prohibition of abortion was to stimulate the birth rate. The simultaneous abolition of the possibility to establish legal relations between a father and his natural child created a completely opposite incentive. The demographic disparity created by the War left many women no other opportunity for having children than to give birth when still unmarried, but the desire that their child should have a legal father and the impossibility of receiving any maintenance made many choose for an illegal abortion The official propaganda of the time gave as the purpose of the Ukase the strengthening of the socialist family. This slogan could not justify the Draconian legislation, however. The family did not need to be strengthened. Although divorce had become quite independence or round was not the relaxation of morals.73 but the flourishing economic common. its backs independence of women. The lifelong marriage of pre-Revolutionary times had given way to a modern type of serial monogamy. The communist perception of relations between men and women was quite ascetic. Mutual fidelity was self-evident and adultery was considered to be moral degradation. Although family law as such was lenient, 74 other social regulators exercised a firm control over sexual morality and family stabil ity The Komsomol, the school the trade unions, the labour collectives and other vehicles for social control that were plent and powerful in the totalitarian Soviet state took care of that. As statistical data show, the Ukase in fact did not have any stabilising effect at all. 75 cannot pretend to know the true explanation for the contra-reform. The legislative history of the act is largely unknown. Studying that dark period of Soviet history is as problematic as studying the Dark Ages. One thing is certain: the initiative did not emanate One can only speculate about Stalins precise role, as has been done about Napoleon f ent from the kitchen of the legal profession, but directly from Stalin and his close environ intervention in the drafting of the family law provisions of the Code civil 76 Was it an utterance of Stalin's frustration concerning his second marriage to Nadezhda allilueva, whom he, like Napoleon in the case of Josephine, could never make to belong to him body and soul, and who committed suicide in 1932? Perhaps his Caucasus origins, a region extremely conservative in respect of family matters, played a role. Stalin's conservatism regarding women is well known: he considered it improper for his teenage daughter to wear See Kerblay (1996),p 145 7Rheinstein(1972), p 231 74As Rheinstein, analysingearly Roman divorce law of the republican period, rightly points out, in reality there is no clear correlation between the restrictiveness of divorce law and the stability of the family 7The divorce rate in 1938-39 was 4. 8 per thousand In 1958-59 it was the same. Not only did this rate not decrease while the Ukase of 1944 was in force, but it increased to 5.3 per thousand instead; Willekens and Scherbo(1995),p. 199 76See Glendon(1989),p. 89anything was ‘out of tune’ with the newly created economic situation and family structures, it was the Ukase of 1944, not the rules of the Family Code of 1926 that it set aside. Also, the Ukase was not a concession to ‘a popular and conservative current represented by peasant tradition’ that wanted to return to more conventional forms of marriage.72 At that time, the regime was less interested than ever in the wishes of the population. Moreover, the traditional patriarchal family structure was already very much dead. From a political point of view, there could not have been a less suitable moment to roll back the reform than in the middle of the Second World War, when families were separated on an unprecedented scale and the number of children born outside wedlock increased dramatically. The purpose of the prohibition of abortion was to stimulate the birth rate. The simultaneous abolition of the possibility to establish legal relations between a father and his natural child created a completely opposite incentive. The demographic disparity created by the War left many women no other opportunity for having children than to give birth when still unmarried, but the desire that their child should have a legal father and the impossibility of receiving any maintenance made many choose for an illegal abortion. The official propaganda of the time gave as the purpose of the Ukase the ‘strengthening of the socialist family’. This slogan could not justify the Draconian legislation, however. The family did not need to be strengthened. Although divorce had become quite common, its background was not the ‘relaxation of morals’,73 but the flourishing economic independence of women. The lifelong marriage of pre-Revolutionary times had given way to a modern type of ‘serial’ monogamy. The communist perception of relations between men and women was quite ascetic. Mutual fidelity was self-evident and adultery was considered to be ‘moral degradation’. Although family law as such was lenient,74 other social regulators exercised a firm control over sexual morality and family stability. The Komsomol, the school, the trade unions, the labour collectives and other vehicles for social control that were plenty and powerful in the totalitarian Soviet state took care of that. As statistical data show, the Ukase in fact did not have any stabilising effect at all.75 I cannot pretend to know the true explanation for the contra-reform. The legislative history of the act is largely unknown. Studying that dark period of Soviet history is as problematic as studying the Dark Ages. One thing is certain: the initiative did not emanate from the kitchen of the legal profession, but directly from Stalin and his close environment. One can only speculate about Stalin’s precise role, as has been done about Napoleon’s intervention in the drafting of the family law provisions of the Code civil. 76 Was it an utterance of Stalin’s frustration concerning his second marriage to Nadezhda Allilueva, whom he, like Napoleon in the case of Josephine, could never make to ‘belong to him body and soul’, and who committed suicide in 1932? Perhaps his Caucasus origins, a region extremely conservative in respect of family matters, played a role. Stalin’s conservatism regarding women is well known: he considered it improper for his teenage daughter to wear 72See Kerblay (1996), p. 145. 73Rheinstein (1972), p. 231. 74As Rheinstein, analysing early Roman divorce law of the republican period, rightly points out, in reality there is no clear correlation between the restrictiveness of divorce law and the stability of the family. 75The divorce rate in 1938-39 was 4.8 per thousand. In 1958-59 it was the same. Not only did this rate not decrease while the Ukase of 1944 was in force, but it increased to 5.3 per thousand instead; Willekens and Scherbov (1995), p. 199. 76See Glendon (1989), p. 89