In the 1920s, in the wake of the First World War and the indepdendence struggles of the Baltic states, many of the old social canons had lost their meaning. Women who proved their moral and often also physical strength in the war bravely cut their hair short, painted their lips and eyes brightly, and adopted daring new fashions including the radial "women's suit" of the early 1930s – including a tuxedo with a tie. Women themselves became breadwinners, and in many cases, the main breadwinners of the family.
As journals of the time show, complaints about the destruction of 'traditional' family models are nothing new.
"Happy marriages are very rare these days, because people marry for all sorts of motives, which rarely coincide with what is needed for a happy married life. Most maidens marry to provide themselves with a carefree life. Men usually marry for so-called love and often – as virgins – due to calculation. Anyway, unhappy marriages are a common, albeit very sad phenomenon," wrote the magazine "Sieviete" on August 20, 1926.
Press publications analyzed the tactics of conquering the opposite sex and threats to marriage, and did not skimp on all kinds of observations and advice.
"A modern woman has two children, a boy and a girl. Both are still small. Her husband works in a bank, she also works in a similar job – let's say she is an accountant there,"
Paula Jansons described this new-age phenomenon in the "Modern Woman" edition on January 24, 1931. She also continues: "She works with men who are older than her and who have much older wives than her. Then one day the beauty of the modern woman, her painted lips that bloom and smell like artificial silk paper poppies, seduces the bank manager."
Calling someone a "modern woman" was not usually considered a compliment. Latvian society was still largely agrarian and patriarchal in its essence, and the label "modern woman" was associated with the decadence and loss of 'virtue' characteristic of modern times.
However, one of the first things done by the legislators of the new country was significant revision of the Marriage Law, introducing the possibility of civil marriages – from now on, the most important bond could be agreed not only in the church in the presence of a clergyman, but also in a civil registry office. Perhaps even more surprisingly, divorce was a relatively simple process: in order to get a divorce, it was enough to prove that the spouses have been living apart for three years.
This was to make Latvia one of the most progressive countries in the world in this regard, a "Mecca of marriage and divorce", with many foreigners taking the opportunity to marry or split under its liberal marriage laws.
In 1938, a scandal was caused in Riga by the case of the aristocratic Italian artist Count Emanuele Castelbarco, who had used Latvia's liberal divorce law to rid himself of his first wife and marry his lover – Wally, the daughter of the famous conductor Arturo Toscanini (1867-1957). The first wife, however, managed to prove that the two had not lived apart for three years, so the count turned out to be a bigamist and in the end he was forced to divorce his new love.
However, the law adopted in 1921 was not intended to be used in such a manner. The poet Aspazija said at the platform of theconstitutional Assembly it was: "A big step on the path of progress, a leap over old times."
Francis Trasuns, a Latgalian priest and politician, had a different opinion, stressing that "this law is needed by those who do not believe in God, do not go to church and want to raise their children not in the spirit of the Christian faith, but according to their own ethics".
On May 1, 1925, Voldemārs Maldonis, dean of the theology faculty of the University of Latvia, expressed his thoughts on the marriage crisis in the magazine "Sieviete" in a way that seems very familiar to us even today.
"Now we see that not only husbands, but also many wives are breaking away from the family environment. Bars, hotels, restaurants are crowded. There you can find the 'heads' and 'hearts' of our family there, drinking, smoking, chatting. Baptisms, weddings and funerals are already held in restaurants and social halls. Family rooms are too quiet for a high-strung 'cultured person'. But let's not forget – happiness loves silence."
On January 31, 1935, the newspaper "Rīts" reported that every fifth person in Latvia simply does not marry. A 'bachelor tax' was discussed in the mid-20s, intended to push those reluctant to wed into the arms of matrimony and this issue was raised again during the economic crisis, when unmarried people had to suffer from larger salary deductions. Bachelors and spinsters, and also divorced or childless couples, who were deemed not contribute to increasing the 'living force' of the nation, became categories of the population that had to give more to the state and take less.
