#joint responsibility

'Members of the intelligentsia, as we have seen, were looking for a scientifically-based doctrine which would enable them to be of service to the people. The one which proved most compelling was socialism. It came from western Europe in a variety of forms, but they all underwent a transformation on reaching Russia: they took on a pronounced messianic streak which ultimately derived from the long-suppressed national myth of "Holy Rus" as the bearer of true Christianity. Russian socialism was also strongly marked by the tradition of "joint responsibility" which had been consolidated and extended by the post-Petrine state. It elevated to an ideal the egalitarian, self-contained, and participatory peasant land commune and workers' artel.'

'Serfdom had a profound and lasting formative influence on all Russian social and political social institutions. It perpetuated and strengthened a collectivist outlook on social problems; "joint responsibility" was confirmed not just as an administrative device but as the manner in which Russians of both town and country tackled the difficulties of survival in a harsh environment. It probably made possible the conquest, consolidation, and defense of a huge and diverse empire; on the other hand it also impeded the development of private property and of personal and political freedoms. It confirmed the dominance of persons, rather than institutions and laws, throughout society, at the very time when authorities were just beginning to introduce from above an impersonal and bureaucratic mode of administrative procedure.'

Famine, plague and fire amounted to 'a highly risk-prone environment'. 'It is scarcely surprising, then, that Russian peasants have tended to arrange their social and economic life in such a way as to minimize risk and provide mutual re-insurance. That is why they adopted krugovaia poruka, or "joint responsibility," consensus decisionmaking in a communal assembly, a strip system of land tenure, and the practice, which grew commoner in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as the state's tax demands grew, of periodically redistributing land among the households of a given village.' '"Joint responsibility" affected the peasant's attitude to all social institutions: law, authority, tradition, property. It was especially marked in relation to the land. Peasants regarded the land as belonging to God but not to any human being. It was a resource available to all who cultivated it and to their dependents, as and when they needed it.'

Ephesians 5: 31. “For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”

I really like this graphic. It illustrates the importance of the principles in Ephesians 5 concerning marriage, added to the godly woman portrayed in Proverbs 31. and sealed by the definition of love in I Cor. 13. Perfect recipe!

The importance of the…