Мъжът - глава на семейство в българското селско общество след Освобождението
Husband - Head of the Family in the Bulgarian Rural Society after the Liberation

Summary/Abstract: The paper reveals the changes, occurred after the Liberation of Bulgaria (1878) in the role of husband as head of the family, according to the Bulgarian common law. They represent one of the manifestations of the changes in the Bulgarian common law as a whole during the period from the Liberation till the middle of the 20th century. The study is based on fieldwork materials collected by the author in North-Western Bulgaria. The role of husband as head of the family is expressed to a different extent in the different areas of the common law, but finds its most vivid expression in the family law, the inheritance law and partly in the law of contracts. That is why in the present study the attention is focused primarily on these three spheres of the Bulgarian common law. I will present the role of husband – head of the united family, which is a transitional form between the large patriarchal family (patriarchal community) and the modern nuclear family. Further it is pointed out, that the development of market economy gradually led to desintegration of the united family and establishing of the contemporary small family. In the clarification of the role of husband - head of the family in the inheritance after the Liberation the following issues will be addressed: the acquisition of the right of the head of the family to deprive his sons of heritage, the subdivision of movable and unmovable property (the main form of inheritance in the common Bulgarian law) more and more often before the death of the head of the family, and the acquisition of the right of the head of the family to make a testament. It is emphasized that the changes in the role of husband - head of the family in the Bulgarian rural society after the Liberation resulted from the development of the new socio – economic processes in the country during the period under study.

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