Anthropological and legal analysis of marriage and family norms of the Sartuls of Mongolia and Buryatia

The article presents a legal and anthropological analysis of marriage and family norms of two ethnic groups living in Russia and Mongolia, which history became separate since the beginning of the 17th century. However, the identity of their name “the Sartuls” is indicative of a historical commonality within the Mongol Empire. The study of social norms in such communities makes it possible to identify the rules and institutions that are most resistant to change. Thus, studying marriage rituals by ethnographers made it possible to reveal a significant resistance of these social norms to changes, despite the impressive three- century separation. The article draws attention to the importance of ethnographic material for research in legal anthropology, as well as to the patterns of marriage law evolution in close relationship with the development of property rights, political and legal institutions.First, we gave a brief review of the literature on the origin of the Sartul tribe, and the history of their settling in Central Asia, and then considered the issues of marriage norms origin, their correlation with the social structure of the clan community. The traditional rituals of these ethnic groups were the most ancient, and had the most profound impact on the development of conventional behavior in this sphere of life. On the contrary, the differences in rituals were dictated by the circumstances and peculiarities of property rights development.