New Soviet Family Law Will Improve Lot of Illegitimate Children

The scan: The Week v1 no19.pdf (PDF, Marxists Internet Archive, opens at this page)

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The draft of new family laws have recently been published in the Soviet Union. These will make some much needed improvements in the field of divorce but perhaps most significant are the changes in relation to those children born out of wedlock. Until 1944 men in the Soviet Union had to pay for the support of their illegitimate children. Laws brought in that year nullified unregistered (common law) marriages and relieved men of responsibility for their illegitmate children (except in the case where it could be proved that at one time the men had maintained the child), State grants to unmarried mothers can hardly be called adequate, being »monthly grants of 5, 7 and 10 roubles for the first, second and third children respectively. (A rouble is roughly equal to 1/=\. Under the new laws the illegitimate children will have the same right to support from the father as a child of divorced parents, ise, 25% of his salary. As the average wage is about 90 roubles per month this will represent a big increase,