| Abstract [eng] |
Modern society of the XX c. started demanding certain changes that would facilitate people’s life. One of the changes that has been pursued – civil registry. After its approval it would be possible to get married not in the church, to register birth and death cases. For quite a long time this could be done only in the church. Eventually this situation started causing difficulties as there were people who did not recognise the Church, i.e. free-thinkers. As a consequence, people that were fighting for recognition of civil registry during the period of the First Republic of Lithuania were using the practice of other countries, searching for arguments in these states’ experiences. Therefore, the aim of the work is to investigate the problem of civil registry in the First Republic of Lithuania. In order to define the problem of civil registry, in the work we discuss how contemporary society understood what civil registry really was. In many cases the latter was identified with civil marriage that according to the representatives of Catholic Church led the society to debauchery. In addition, in Lithuania and other European countries there is a shortage of researches regarding the topic of civil registry as many demographers, historians investigate such spheres as marriage, divorce (J. Hajnal, A. J. Coul, James Muldoon, Dalia Marcinkevičienė et al). At the end of the XIX c. – beginning of the XX c. modern society created a more liberal approach towards family. First of all, this is reflected in family’s property relations. This is indicated by the laws adopted in the United Kingdom, France at that time that provided more freedom to women managing their personal property during marriage. In addition, during this period special laws were adopted that regulated not only the order of conclusion of marriage, but also the divorce. While investigating the problem of civil registry it was important to have a look at the legal status of that time. For this purpose all articles in permanent constitutions of the First Republic of Lithuania concerning family and its status were analysed. In addition, other laws that should indicate certain situation in the country in case of the absence of the Law on Civil Registry have been also analysed: the Laws on Citizenship, Changes of Surnames, Managing of Education in General Education Schools of the Ministry of Education, Project of Law on Metrics. Moreover, it is essential to highlight international law as well that influenced introduction of the mentioned law in the country, i.e. the Concordat of Lithuania and the Holy See. |
