A SINGLE-PARENT FAMILY IN THE PAST AND PRESENT
The article presents a theoretical and statistical analysis of the emergence of families with a single parent. Through the prism of time the author considers the contribution of such of the phenomena of social life as the parents divorce, widowhood, the birth of illegitimate children, adoption of a child by a single parent, as well as the prolonged absence of a spouse or a voluntary suspension from parenting to the statistics of the appearance of single-parent families. The paper points out that divorce in pre-revolutionary Russia was not the most important factor in the emergence of families with a single mother or father, as it is observed in our country now. At the same time the fact of the birth of a child by a woman who is unmarried from Peter ’s reforms to the present day significantly increases the share of families with a single parent. The article discusses the causes of this phenomenon in the Russian Empire and in modern Russia. The author shows how the attitude towards single fathers and single mothers has changed through the prism of laws, norms and rules of social morality in the present time and in the past. The study found out that Russian society has had different attitudes to their parents, male and female raising a child alone. During the studied period society has considered fathers as heads of single-parent families more loyally than mothers in similar circumstances. The latter, although their number prevails in the total number of families with a single parent often felt negative attitude from others, as well as from social institutions of the state and the church. In today’s Russia this situation, as the author shows, occurs only at the domestic level. Legislation of the Russian Federation and social services provide material and psychological assistance to single-parent families in resolving various difficult life situations.