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TATARS 761
substantial private property, there are no allotments of land, draft animals or
agricultural implements. Legal inheritance is transmitted according to the traditional
system. The demise of the head of the household never requires, as it
did before 1917, the division of property among heirs.
Formal religious weddings, while rare, are still observed. Religious weddings
are 1 in 10 in Siberia, for instance. Marriage, prior to the revolution, was a
complicated process steeped in formality and ritual, lasting for as long as a year
or more. Today, the procedure is simplified and varies regionally. The Kazan
Tatars conduct a ' 'two-cycle'' wedding ceremony after the betrothal of the couple
and after the parents on both sides have come to an agreement. The ceremony
usually occurs in the bride's house and is followed by daytime celebrations
consisting of only the elderly or male guests and by nocturnal festivities including
only the young or female guests. Participants in the revelry must be invited.
Gifts in money or in kind are accepted after the nuptials. In contrast, Volga-
Kama Tatars are married at the groom's house, and guests of both sexes may
attend simultaneously. For them, the holiday begins with the taking of the
uniquely Tatar "honey and butter," after which the young couple is presented
with money by the men and with cloth remnants by the women. The wedding
ceremony continues for several days. On two of those days, the groom's parents
are guests of the matchmaker, who is still used in traditional Tatar marriage
rites.
Although brideprice is forbidden by law, the dowry, consisting of domestic
furnishings, is permissible. Before 1917, the bride could not be given away
without the dowry, lest her parents lose face. Today, as Socialist civil marriages
become more frequent, the importance of the dowry is declining. Polygyny is
also forbidden by Soviet law. Although instances of it are alleged to occur in
Central Asia, none has been reported among the Tatars.
Compared to other Soviet Muslim groups, Tatars, particularly those living in
cities, reflect a relatively high frequency of intermarriage with Russians and
Volga Finns. In fact, fewer than a quarter of all Tatars today attach importance
to ethnicity in marriage. In the Tatar A.S.S.R., between 3 and 15 percent of
the Russian skilled workers and plant managers, respectively, had Tatar spouses
in the 1970s. Among Tatar workers in the same categories, the percentages were
10 and 29 percent, respectively. Tatars in Central Asia also often intermarry
with local populations.
This relatively high proportion of mixing with non-Muslims, especially with
Russians, appears to have taken its toll among Tatars, who continue to speak
their native language and do not choose to speak a second language. Because
of their geographic position in the Russian republic, Tatars always have had a
higher share of bilingual speakers than other Muslims (60 to 70 percent speaking
Russian as a second language versus a Central Asian average of about half that),
but now Tatars increasingly have begun to adopt Russian as their primary language,
a decision that is tantamount to becoming an ethnic Russian. The group