Civil legal capacity of women in Russia in the imperial period

Civil legal capacity of women is an important element in understanding the legal status of women in general. The state policy regarding women in the imperial period changed depending, first, on the prevailing dogmatic understanding of the place of women in society, and secondly, on the changes in the type of socioeconomic relations in this period; third, on the nature of the political regime; fourthly, on the activity of women themselves. Since these factors did not develop synchronously, the woman in the XVIII-XIX centuries was in a double position. On the one hand, she was completely dependent on the head of the family: father, husband, son. The state strictly followed the joint living of the spouses and could force the woman to return to the family, despite the cruel treatment of her in this house. On the other hand, women owned their own movable property: dowry, gifts and inherited property, which they could dispose of fully. In the XIX century, the same rights were granted to women in respect of immovable property. This article highlights the causes and some issues of the evolution of Russian imperial legislation on the civil legal capacity of women. The article gives a description of the main causes of changes in the legal status of women in the XVIII and XIX centuries, which include the gradual withdrawal from the "terem" lifestyle, education, the development of commodity-money and contractual relations, coming to power in the XVIII century of a number of strong empresses etc. All this made it possible, by the end of the XIX century, for women to become, although not full members of society, but to have greater civil rights than their counterparts in Western Europe.